Sakura's Glasses
by Tobee
Summary: What if Sakura unintentionally develops a personality similar to Uchiha Obito's? How would Kakashi feel upon seeing her wear his goggles? What if Kakashi mentors Sakura out of nostalgia for his old teammate, and she learns the chidori instead of Sasuke? What would happen when Tobi finds out? (Not a time travel or self insert but follows and changes canon storyline. Plot/adventure)
1. Chapter 1

Hiya! I figured Sakura got no say in the canon plot so why not make her a major factor in this one? For example, in this story, Sakura will meet Obito before Team 7 is formed! I think. It happens very soon, but don't skip any chapters just because you want to see the meeting! Further, don't expect Tsunade to teach her. Tsunade learned medical ninjutsu and chakra powered fists on her OWN. Obviously she didn't learn it from Sarutobi-sensei. So Sakura can do the same, with the self-teaching part, but better.. Meaniing, she learns to go toe-on-toe with Sasuke. If you don't like strong Sakura then don't read DX otherwise, review your favorite chapters! They're very motivating, even bad ones! Critiques are good, though. Yuppie! -Tobee

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><p>Sakura walked through a normal street of Konoha and entered a ninja shop. She was looking to restock her red dresses but a pair of square-shaped red glasses caught her eyes.<p>

"Well...My vision is perfect," She tried to convince herself, "And I don't think Sasuke would approve."

She turned to leave, outfit forgotten, but was stopped by the store owner. "Sakura-san,"

"Eep! How do you k-"

"Glasses..With the technology to enlarge distant figures or even small text...And maybe see chakra...Record things...an-"

"I'll take it!" Sakura stammered before she could stop herself.

That night, for once in her fangirl life, nerdiness defeated vanity and Sakura went home wearing a pair of new, cool glasses!

And she absolutely loved them.

And having relented into personal desires once, she'd do it again, and again, and again.

And she ended up not dieting.

This...was the start of a Sakura with the willpower rivaling Naruto's and the ambition rivaling Sasuke's.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, Sakura woke up early and pulled on her red dress.

She was about to forgo the glasses out of embarrassment but after realizing they were a matching red, they weren't that bad. Maybe no one will notice an ugly difference since the colors matched, or something like that. She grabbed the electric glasses and pulled them over her eyes.

Suddenly, her vision amplified.

She'd even say she developed the Sharingan, but that may have been exaggerated since she did just wake up, groggily too. . Scanning the pink wallpapered room with quick eyes, the pinkette decided there was nothing to see here and left through the window. If she came downstairs then she'd be tempted to eat breakfast, and she absolutely knew she wouldn't be able to resist. Not anymore.

Not since she'd lost her self-control over the first time she relented into buying something that went against her beauty morals.

Her thoughts were halted when she realized she was falling from the scary height of the 2nd floor building. Dammit, she'd seen ninja jump from roof to roof with ease and such a quotidian act ingrained into her subconscious before she learned how to pull that off. Crashing into the stone grounds would break her young bones if not mutilate her into an unrecognizable flattened bloody mess.

She shrieked not at the possibility of dying but at the thought of ending up at the hospital, getting no visits, or if she would get visitors, they'd make fun of her forehead and the brain inside it, for jumping out a window for no reason? That was something only _**that idiot**_ would do! Her face turned beet red, swearing she'd never confess anything, not even if Ino-pig's dad got to her.

There was what would have been the barest glimpse of movement, as arms materialized underneath her, two boney horizontal pillars each one pushing underneath her back and kneepits, catching her bridal-style without giving the time to steady her, before whirling her onto the floor. Stumbling forward in an attempt not to fall face-first to the dirt, she looked up and stared straight ahead, trying to see her savior but he was long gone.

Sakura's lower lip quivered.

She moved her hand to wipe at her eyes before anything salty had an opportunity to form but something plastic blocked her access.

Oh right, the pair of-

**THE RECORDING DEVICE.**

She didn't know how to use it and assumed it would take a few hours to learn. But after fiddling with a few connections on the inside with a bit of chakra to her fingers, she managed to press a mental button and rewatch the scene. She saw everything in slow motion. And one distinct trait tugged at her memory.

Silver hair.

There was more to it, more she could do. But she didn't have the time. It would take days or weeks to build up her free time, and each time she'd have to refresh her memory of what she learned from the previous free time she used. for her to understand such a cool, complicated tool because of her lack of time but-what if she sacrificed a few hours right here and now?

Firming her resolve, she headed off the opposite direction of the Academy. She was the top kunoichi in the books, one day wouldn't hurt.

Little did she know she wasn't the only troublemaker cutting class today.

Or what would befall the Uchiha Compound later that day.


	3. Chapter 3

Sakura was crouched in a tree overlooking the Uchiha clan compound, a book in hand. She had seen Naruto jump from walls to walls in his escapes from authority after doing stupid things like paint the Hokage Monument. No idea where he learned to do that, but if that idiot could do it, she could too, but better. And just to make absolutely sure she was better than the dead last of the class, she read the next chapter of the book and learned to tree-walk. She performed BOTH techniques perfectly on her first try, but that could be attributed to being right beside her crush's home and having a valid use of the technique.

Setting aside the library textbook on "Chakra Jumping and Climbing," (her nerdiness had rapidly increased ever since getting glasses,) Sakura made a ram seal and chakra ran to her eye-wear to amplify her vision.

She read at least a hundred red flames scurrying about, and pouted.

At this rate, how was she going to get inside?

She needed to have an advantage over Ino-pig and everyone else. She'd win Sasuke's affections if she knew what his family was like or anything else about him.

But she can't just waltz in when she didn't know any Uchiha, and the ones her age were impossible to just simply befriend, hence why she was here.

Suddenly, a pail of slugs was thrust from above into her neck. That slimey goo went inside her red dress and slicked down her back.

Sakura screamed.

A high pitched prepubescent voice screamed with her and a clump of orange and yellow crashed from the same direction onto her body.

So yeah, two "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Then,

"NARUUTO YOU DUMBASS!" PUNCH.

After that was over with, Sakura pulled the back of her dress up and demanded Naruto remove the slugs noming on the skin of her spine.

Naruto hastily obeyed, too ashamed to feel pride that Sakura trusted him enough to showing him her bare back. He made sure to place the slugs back in the bucket.

It was obvious he was pulling another prank, and on her future boyfriend nonetheless. She paused, debating whether to yell a tirade at the orange roach or, well... "Naruto, what were you planning to do with those slugs?"

He looked ashamed, but he wasn't going to lie. "Was gonna put them in their wife's beds 'cuz they all married." He frowned thoughtfully. "Why are you here, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura crossed her arms sternly. Well, at least he wasn't pranking Sasuke. The thought that the prank extended to Sasuke's mother never occurred to her. "I was trying to get inside," Sakura answered without giving her real reason. She bit her lip. "Naruto, you're good at this, so you know how to get in, right?"

She blinked at Naruto's paralyzed form and reached to poke him to confirm if time really froze. But, he jumped. "YATTA! Call me Naruto-senpai and I'll teach ya ALL my best escape tricks ever!"

Sakura grunted begrudgingly. "Naruto-senpai. Now show me."

So he did.

In return, she taught him tree-walking. Because contrary to popular belief, Sakura had morals of her own.


	4. Chapter 4

春

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><p>It was finally time.<p>

Naruto and Sakura threw on a background illusion super jutsu over their bodies (In other words they grabbed a blanket that matched the same as the walls and covered their figure before sneaking in.)

Not a single alarm was raised.

After going ten streets past the gate guards who turned away any non-Uchiha, they blended into the crowd of rowdy non-shinobi Uchiha among a few languid off-duty Uchiha Military Police.

Sakura turned to Naruto and hissed, "We should split up."

Naruto looked desperate and whispered loudly, "Don't worry, I won't get you in trouble-"

"Because I'll be at Sasuke-kun's house— to investigate." She cursed herself for adding the honorific.

"Listen, we both have challenging goals of our own. You want to prank the police. I want Sasukekun's love." She placed her hands on her hips. But Naruto seemed to have lost his vigor for the prank, and looked even more crestfallen after she said that.

Sakura had to admit she couldn't have gotten in without his help. Sighing, she decided to sugarcoat it a bit, unable to believe her own words."Naruto, let's team up."

At Naruto's hopeful look, Sakura rolled her eyes, explaining. "You help me win Sasuke over, I bail you out of trouble whenever you get caught, AND help you with your pranks—But only when I feel like it."

"YATTA!"

"Shh, you'll blow our cover, idiot!"

"Ok!" Naruto whispered loudly.

Sakura resisted the urge to facepalm. "Now go do your own thing—I should be stopping you but you helped me and I have my own goals to worry about," and with that, Sakura vanished in the crowd.

And so did Naruto.

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><p>野<p>

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><p>Sakura was glancing left and right and finally slapped her palm to her forehead. "Dammit! I don't even know where Sasuke-kun lives! Now what do I do..."<p>

**Cha! I need to secure a way to come back whenever I want, that's what! **

"Shut up Inner! I need to think—Wait, that might actually be what I need to do first." Sakura paused. "Where have you been?"

**Sleeping, the like. Ever since you got so nerdy you kept dismissing me as schizophrenia. But now that you're thinking of Sasuke-kun, I'm back! **

"Get outta my mind."

**IDIOT! YOU NEED ME. You wouldn't have came up with that by yourself—and get thrown out faster than Naruto. Besides, don't you think two strategic minds work better than one? **

"Okay! Okay! You can shut up because I know arguing with myself is totally stupid so I won't do that."

**Good**.

Sakura's eye twitched.

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><p>サクラ<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

An elderly woman who must've been 100 years old was carrying at least 10 bags of groceries and heaving asthmatic breaths. Eep! That poor woman.

Sakura ran towards her and placed her hands together behind her back "A-Ano..." She shook her head. "Excuse me, ma'am. Would you please let me carry some of your bags?"

**Right! This is the perfect opportunity to make an acquaintance and visit the Uchiha compound under the pretense of visiting this person anytime you want! Go for it, cha!**

The old lady turned and smiled toothless. "What a nice young girl."

**She totally bought it!**

Ten minutes later, Sakura was sweating hard and her dress was wet and ripped.** We've been duped!** She leaned her full weight against one of the lamp posts beside the door the bag-less old lady was unlocking, and charged in first, dumping all the bags onto the kitchen floor.

Sakura dropped to the tiled floor and panted hard.

_I can't believe this old lady walked ten feet with all that weight._

**No wonder she has an ugly hunchback**.

_Inner!_

"Thank you for the help, hohoho" The hag was standing on a cane Sakura didn't see before as she too entered the kitchen. "Young people these days don't appreciate the elderly. Now let me prepare something for us to eat."

The grandma proceeded to turn on the cooker and make some soup, frying some eggs at the same time. Sakura considered helping, but the hag forced her to remain seated—on a dining chair in the kitchen—not the floor of course.

"Now what would your name be, dear?"

"Sakura,"

The grandma grinned. "I'm Hana. You can stop by any time, Sakura-chan. You really saved me back there."

For the first time ever since losing every single practice spar, Sakura didn't feel **useless**. Because despite being the number 1 kunoichi of the Academy, no one had every appreciated her contribution before, and perhaps no one ever will—were things to stay the same and she to join Team 7 with her low skill rate—she wasn't going to kid herself. Her taijutsu skills were atrocious despite her textbook perfect stances that not even her teachers complimented her without stepping on thin lies and reassurances.

So to be thanked in such a matter?

A genuine smile blossomed.

"I think I'll come by a lot."


	6. Chapter 6

春

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><p>"Sakura-chan, thanks for carrying my bags."<p>

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Sakura, thanks for helping me cross this street." <strong>Ok, this one's creepier than the others.<strong>

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Sakura-chan, thank you for returning my cat from the oak tree. Would you like to get washed?" At a Sakura covered in dirt, bruises, grime, and cuts.<p>

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Sakura, would you mind helping my friend Sawa?" A mischievous smile crossed the grandma's face. "She's as old as I am~"<p>

"Sure, Hana!"

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Wait so, you're Sawa-san?"<p>

"Yee that young lady who helped me cross the street!"

"Cool, I'm Sakura. What did you need help with?

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Sakura, why don't ya help out Shiku's grandfather next?"<p>

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Oii, what, a little girl wants to help me chop stones?! BWAHAHAHAHAH—*cough**heave*cough*"<p>

"Sir!" Sakura was at his side with a glass of water and patting his back.

"You—*heave* *gulps water* Ya know ya really ain't bad. I'll teach ya how ta help."

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Sakura, how about yee massage this old lady's brittle bones?"<p>

"Like this?"

"Aaa, good. How's yee cha-chakura control?"

"Pinpoint perfect, madam."

"Ahoho, good. Can't reach ma back so I'll teach yee."

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Sakura, thanks for fixin' ma wounds, us old people fall down a lot these days,"<p>

"I know, ma'am. It's all thanks to you I don't have to worry about running out of bandages. I can't believe she was a medic nin once!"

"I heard Sawa was teachin' ya and it turns out true. Ya did better than she could and I ain't gonna miss the chance. Ya gonna be with us long term so why not help ya help us better eh?"

"Really? You're really going to teach me too? What do you have in mind?

"Sawa taught yee ta nullify pain in bones but how 'bout me teachin' ya to heal 'em fully? Ya want that don't yee?"

"Cha! 'Course I do!"

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Sakura, thanks for getting my cat down again. Would you like to shower?—Oh no you don't. You ain't goin' home in that mess. I have a change of clothes ready for you!"<p>

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Sakura, thanks for bringing my cat down. You can come in."<p>

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Sakura, thanks."<p>

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Sakura, thanks!"<p>

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Thank you, Sakura."<p>

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Sakura, I appreciate your help very much—Hohoho"<p>

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Would you like something to eat, Sakura? There's still some rice buns left!"<p>

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"You're really helpful, Sakura!" <strong><em>Cha! I'm not useless!<em>**

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Hey Sakura-chan, isn't tomorrow your birthday?"<p>

"Eep!"

"You tried to hide it from us didn't you? That isn't very nice when we want to give you a present"

"I know, but you guys retired ages ago and I don't want to pressure you into buying a present or something stupid. I mean, it wasn't like I wasn't coming. You can count on me to come every day, so no worries ma'am."

"Hohoho. Such a sweet girl, right Shiko? Who says we're not simply chipping pieces of ryo together?"

"Eep! Please don't! Don't buy anything expensive! If you insist, just cook some eggs for me—or something!"

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><p>春<p>

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><p>"Goggles?" This was not what she expected. And of all the colors, they were <em>orange<em>—like—like Naruto for kami's sake. **Cha! This old hag expects this piece of trash to match my red dress?!**

The old lady nodded. "These goggles are an ancient artifact." At Sakura's dubious expression, Hana continued. "They used to belong to a hero who died protecting the village. His name, Obito Uchiha, is inscribed on the Memorial Stone, as they never found the body."

Sakura's eyes went wide in awe. She looked at the former piece of trash in new light. She removed her red hair ribbon and replaced it with Obito's goggles, still exposing her forehead in that cute way Ino taught her.

Hana sniffed. "In fact, he was like a grandchild to me, to all of us. You remind me a lot like him. He always helped us old people when no one else spared us a second glance. He dreamed of becoming Hokage to make this a better place...No one acknowledged him at the beginning." Hana's voice crackled. "Not even 'til the end." With that, she burst into tears.

Sakura instantly held her, "It's okay—I'm sure he knew you were happy—and he was happy to help—yeah!"

"Now a nice girl like you should really lead our village!" Sawa chipped in.

"Ahahahah, *cough* yeah ya one ta help the weak! Not that these old bones are weak! But if they were weak ya'd haft healed 'em just fine like ya did with Sawa's!"

"Ohoho~my bones feel better than those medic nin's shabby work. All thanks to yee, Sakura."

"Yea, that's what a Hokage should do."

"Sakura, don't you dare use village funds to assign too many D-ranks to help us— we can handle ourselves! Hohoho~"

"Hana, Shin— you guys." Sakura flailed desperately. "There's no way I can become Hokage—"

"Better you than anyone else!"

"Do your best, Sakura!"

"We support you!"

Sakura went home exhausted with a red face that night.

But she also went to sleep with a smile on her face.

Maybe that wouldn't be so bad, if it ever happened. Doubtful.

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><p>春<p>

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><p>Every day after the academy, Sakura returned. But in the end, she never found the time to visit Sasuke's place. Not when all these old Uchiha people needed her help.<p>

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><p>春野<p> 


	7. Chapter 7

"YOU'RE LATE AGAIN SAKURA!" Iruka-sensei's yell matched the one he reserved only for Naruto.

"Eep! Sorry Iruka-sensei, I was helping an old lady cross the street and—"

"Get to your seat!" With that, Sakura slumped down onto the only empty seat which was beside that orange idiot.

"Yo!" She saluted sarcastically.

"Heya Sakura-chan! I haven't seen ya for a while and noticed you going to the Uchiha compound everyday and thought to drop by at Sasuke's but didn't see you there-Whoa are those new goggles?! YATTA!" Naruto jumped outta his seat and fistpumped the air, which sucked all the students' attentions from Iruka-sensei.

"NARUTO SIT DOWN!" Sakura and Iruka chorused.

The class returned to their work, seeing nothing of excitement and by now adapted to Naruto's antics.

"I agree that my goggles match yours as far as outfits go—But yours look hella more retarded than mine! And that doesn't mean you get to hang out with me unless you plan to help."

"Help with what?"

"Oh, Hana and the others after school."

"Those old creeps who recoil at the sight of me? HELL NA!" Naruto crossed his arms for emphasis.

"BAKA!" Sakura grabbed Naruto's face, pinching and pulling at his cheeks. "They're actually pretty nice!"

"Nuuu—Dey Gimme Cold Luuks!" Naruto flailed outta her grasp.

"Hmph. In that case don't get in my way." Sakura turned away with her arms crossed stubbornly.

"But Sakura-chan! Wasn't I supposed to help you get um..-Sasuke-teme?"

"Sasuke-" She raised an eyebrow. "-KUN." Sakura stood up. "My gosh! How could I've forgotten about him!?" Sakura's eyes shot towards the cute boy a few rows down at the leftest collumn. He was sitting beside Ino-pig. The pig was making cute expressions at him and every then and now shooting Sakura glares and confused looks at the same time. How dare she!

"SAKURA SIT DOWN!" Iruka shouted and Naruto whispered loudly at the same time.

Sakura sat down, her face red. The class laughed. Dammit, now she was going to get bullied later. She shot a glance at Ami, the lead bully, who was whispering profusely to her girls who glanced at Sakura with mean looks.

Sakura slammed her forehead to the table. Where was karma when she needed it?

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><p>春<p>

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><p>The bell rung and class had ended unproductively, not that Sakura missed much. She'd read ahead on the lessons anyway.<p>

Naruto had already charged ahead, probably off to play some stupid prank. Good, there's no way she'd embarrass herself in front of that idiot-or worse, have said idiot play the hero and rescue her. She could handle herself!

With that, Sakura pulled her protective orange goggles over her glasses and walked outdoors to face the girls.

Her suspicions were correct, the gang of them were waiting for her.

"Big forehead!"

"Four-eyes!"

"Copying Naruto!"

"Nasty fashion sense!"

"At least that ribbon looked better than trashy goggles!"

"What are you doing, going to Sasuke's place everyday?! I'll make you never want to show your pretty face to him again!" Ami marched up and punched Sakura's face, snapping her out of her daze. (Yes, Sakura wasn't listening, she was lost in thought.)

Being hit, Sakura had had enough! She readied her fist and sent Ami flying to the ground. Then heavy footsteps came.

The girls all started wailing the instant they saw a teacher walk up, Ami being the loudest.

Which meant they were going to get Sakura in trouble!

"Iru-I mean, Mizuki-sensei!"

Mizuki smiled, his eyes darting from the victim of the scene and helping Ami up. He told the girls to take her to the nurse before turning to Sakura, supposedly to reprimand her. "I've noticed you've gotten friendly with the class clown, eh?"

Sakura stammered- "I-I-"

"Heh, not only are you picking up his violent habits, but your grades have been dropping drastically too. No longer are you the top kunoichi of the class. I'm just a little worried, that's all."

Sakura's face went beet red and she looked down, shamed.

"And you've also taken on similar goggles," Mizuki's hand reached down to pull them off, and Sakura cringed. But just before that happened, a darker brown skinned hand grabbed his waist.

"I-Iruka-sensei!" Sakura exclaimed.

"Mizuki, school rules state that teachers aren't allowed to touch students."

"Heh, you're right, Iruka, but that wasn't what I was doing. I was just a little worried about Sakura, that's all." Mizuki smiled warmly to said girl. "Sakura-chan, whenever something troubles you, whether it's educational or personal affairs, you know you can always come and talk to me. That's what teachers are for, ne?"

"...Yes, Mizuki-sensei." Sakura nodded, and crossed her arms over each other a little protectively, as she felt Mizuki's cold hands land onto her head and caress her pink locks before he walked off, hands in pockets.

"Sakura," Sakura jumped slightly a bit at Iruka's voice._ He's still here?_ "I was wondering," He scratched his nose. "What is Naruto to you?"

She scowled. "A troublesome idiot, that's what!" She gulped and retracted that. "I-What I meant to say was, he's a little on the naughty side." She looked down. It was obvious that Naruto was Iruka's favorite.

Iruka smiled, "Say, why don't we go for some ramen? My treat. I'd like to talk to you about something."

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><p>春<p> 


	8. Chapter 8

春

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><p>As Sakura sat on the red stool of Ichiraku Ramen's bar, she tapped the countertop while waiting for her order-well, it was more like Iruka's order for the both of them, since Sakura's never had ramen before-but it was an order of miso ramen-plus extra vegetables upon Sakura's request.<p>

"What's this? A new customer! And a classmate of Naruto's, nonetheless!" The chef, Teuchi, smiled and dumped Sakura's serving before her.

His daughter Ayame repeated the action before Iruka, "Welcome back Iruka-san! You brought along a friend of Naruto?"

Iruka-sensei smiled, abashed. "Well...Sorta."

Sakura's face turned red as she stuffed a mouthful of ramen into her mouth, nutrition complaints shoved aside. Though it was too salty, that was the least of her worries. Iruka was ruining her public image! What would Sasuke-hell, what would _anyone_ think? Especially her parents! "I don't know him." She perked her nose up.

At that, Iruka frowned. "Sakura, do you know why Naruto always plays pranks and gets in trouble?"

Sakura raised an eyebrow, "Because he's an idiot?"

"AHAHAAHAHAHH" Iruka's body shook as his fists slammed the counter. "I can't deny that, " He wiped a tear, "so I'll just say that there's a second reason."

He turned to have Sakura fully face him. "It's because he's an orphan-"

"I know that-"

"Don't interrupt!" As she visibly sulked, Iruka realized she wasn't quite like Naruto as she seemed earlier today, Iruka scratched his nose. "It's because he wants the attention he doesn't get from a mother or father, that he plays the fool. He's really not so bad, just desperate for acknowledgement." _Like how I used to be._ "I hope you come to understand that, Sakura."

"I see..." Sakura perked up. "But then why does everyone hate him?"

Iruka's looked alarmed. "Aah, that's because-uh." Iruka felt a masked presence watching from above in the sakura tree a block away. He looked down. "It's an S-rank secret so I can't tell you, but please know it's not his fault...Not even he knows."

Iruka had expected Sakura to protest or even rebuke him, but Sakura had simply set down her ramen and stood to leave. "Thank you, Iruka-sensei," _Maybe she'd feel some empathy for Naruto now, _"for the meal." _or not. _

That night, Iruka walked home, feeling as though he'd achieved nothing.

That night, Sakura walked home with anger veins on her forehead and hands clenched into fists.

_He doesn't have a mother or father and no one to teach him right from wrong. Think about it, he just does whatever comes into his head.._

**Cha! If I did things like Naruto, forget it!**

_My parents would get mad and I'd get in trouble so of course I don't do it. _Sakura growled.

**But if you don't have parents to teach you, how would you know..?**

_He's selfish and bratty and__** all alone**__. _

_It's like I can't even leave that idiot alone after all; without parents who's left to teach him? That's right, the only one who can is __**ME! **__Damn you, __**NARUUTO!**_

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><p>春<p> 


	9. Chapter 9

春

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><p><strong>Alright Sakura, it's time to do this. No backing out now, forehead. <strong>

Sakura's eye twitched.

**Cha!** A hard punch knocked the door over and Sakura marched in, grocery bags in hand.

Yep, going shopping with all those old women really paid off in the end. Sakura proceeded to use the dingy stove and boil soup, frying eggs, and cooking rice.

When Naruto woke up to the smell of breakfast, he thought he was still dreaming.

Until Sakura stood over his bed like the demon from hell cracking her knuckles—supposedly as loud as his alarm clock, because before she even uttered a word, Naruto jumped out of the bed and ran for his life—into the kitchen.

Sakura waited.

"WOW WHAT'S ALL THIS FOOD IS THIS REAL—WOW AND SAKURA-CHAN TOO-WOW AM I DREAMING OR IS THIS REAL?!"

Sakura charged into the kitchen and punched at his cheek, knocking Naruto to the floor. "Naruto, wash your hands and sit down!"

So he did.

But his eyes were still bubbly and shiny when Sakura dumped a plate of rice and eggs and soup onto his table.

"Now eat up and we're off to school! Also, no pranking!"

"S-Sakura-chan…does this mean we're dating?" He said between greedy mouthfuls. That roach.

"NO YOU IDIOT! I'm your temporary guardian until you learn to do things right!" Sakura growled. "But don't call me mom or dad in public, baka! And keep this a secret. I also won't be walking home with you or anything. Blow our cover and it's over."

Naruto didn't care, he was elated for life. "YATTA! You're the best Sakura-chan. In fact I still think this is a genjutsu but I don't care! I'mma keep dreaming this for life!"

Sakura, once again, resisted the urge to facepalm. "Whatever, let's get to school—"

What's a way to get there fast enough to decrease the chances of being seen together? I mean, it's not like I want Sasuke-kun to know he has a rival—

"Naruto, race you to the academy!"

Got it!

For the first time in ages, the dead last won in something, and against the top kunoichi nonetheless!

* * *

><p>春<p>

* * *

><p><em>Pant. Pant. <em>

_Sweat. Sweat._

Exhausted and in pain, Sakura clutched on the railing caging the Academy's front yard nearby the swing and the entrance.

Naruto hadn't even broken a sweat, and he was currently looking around for Sakura-chan by the looks he was giving the scattered crowd of kids making their way inside.

He spotted Sakura and bolted over, but Sakura held up a hand and squeaked out "Wait." She still needed to catch her breath.

Naruto's eyes widened and he dashed away.

Confused at his reaction, Sakura shrugged it off as Naruto being an idiot again and released the railing to land on her butt. She relaxed while watching the others, and spotted Sasuke leaning behind a tree in the shade.

Sakura was about to call out to him but Naruto came back with a water bottle.

She stared at it skeptically before she smiled. She uncapped the water and gulped the whole thing down, and tossed it to the trash bin with her shuriken skills and a quick physics calculation based on its weight and shape and the air friction and other nerdy stuff.

Naruto's grin split his face as he grabbed Sakura's hand and pulled her to class in a faster run than before.

Sakura didn't even get to spare Sasuke another glance!

Suddenly a thought of Sasuke being like a father to Naruto crossed her mind and she burst out laughing just as they reached the classroom.

The thought of it was so absurd and the look on Iruka-sensei's face didn't help either. She clutched her stomach and giggled hard, until the blonde pig started giving her worried looks.

Sakura climbed up and walked to her seat, Naruto following behind. Ino wondered why Sakura would trade her esteemed seat that was closest to Sasuke-kun for the seat next to the dead last. What she didn't know was that they had a prank to plan. Although that was starting to become questionable itself.

* * *

><p>春<p> 


	10. Chapter 10

春

* * *

><p>"Sakura sweetie, what have they been teaching you at the Academy?"<p>

"Ehh…let's see….the kawarimi, the bushin, the henge—"

"Yes, that. Show me your henge jutsu."

**_Alright_**_!_ Sakura transformed herself into a perfect copy of the old lady, down to the every last dry flake of skin. She waited for the praise to come; every teacher was always impressed at her perfect performance of their jutsu.

"I don't look_ that_ ugly."

_What?! no!_ She jerked, about to mutter an apology because old ladies weren't technically ugly—but then she jerked again, upon seeing red eyes. The jutsu dispelled. "Hana-san! Don't surprise me like that! Your eyes are red!"

"Hohoho~ This is your first time seeing the Sharingan? Just now you've done something most shinobi without the Sharingan cannot."

"…Hana-san…Anyone can do the henge."

"Nono~ Sakura-chan, you have a natural affinity for genjutsu that even our Sharingan users would envy—hohoho"

"_I_ have an affinity for illusions?"

"You have a good control over your chakra and your environment. I'm one hundred and twelve years old, all my sons are dead, and I'm going to die soon-"

"Hana!" Sakura gasped.

"Along with my legacy…But here comes along a nice little girl~"

Sakura gaped.

"You've spent a lot of time with the most _experienced_ Uchiha, who are the best _genjutsu _users in the world…"

_I thought you were just old people._

"You thought we were just old people right?"

Sakura gasped.

"That surprised look on your face always cracks me up. But that's why I am willing to teach you"_ what I couldn't teach Obito_.

* * *

><p>春<p>

* * *

><p>Soon she would witness Sakura using genjutsu for the same thing Obito Uchiha would, had he stayed sane.<p>

Hana would then wonder if Sakura was actually Obito reincarnated... She was born shortly after he died, after all. The old lady smiled, believing her own tangential superstition.

* * *

><p>春<p>

* * *

><p>Inside the underground Uchiha archives, a pink haired girl leaned her back against a dusty bookshelf. Sweat dewed her forehead. Shin, the old man who Hana convinced to tutor her, had simply complained about his bones getting too old for this and pushed her into the clan archives to dawdle on her own.<p>

"Ya got booksmarts, youngin' lady. Ya'll learn best by books insteada hands-on anyways!"

Sakura didn't know whether the old man genuinely perceived her character that way from spending so much time together, or that he was just trying to get out of doing extra work without actually pushing her away, since they spent so much time together.

Regardless, she was stuck in this hot and stuffy room without a proper seat other than the floor, and dusty shelves as a backrest. Random scrolls she pulled out scattered in a semicircle around her.

Uchiha fire jutsu scrolls, Uchiha taijutsu styles, Uchiha history, Uchiha codes, Uchiha cat summoning scroll, Uchiha—

Wait, _cats_?

Sakura pulled out that scroll, read over the hand seals, and bit her thumb. She scribbled her signature beside the rows of signatures before.

Then she weaved a few hand seals and slammed it on the center of her lap. An orange cat with golden brown stripes popped out of smoke and sat on her legs, licking its paw.

"Meow." Matching green eyes stared back, before the eyes took on a snake-like appearance. "It's been two dewades siwce the wast niwja war that an Uchiwa has suwwoned wus-Mew, yow don't wook Uchiwa. RAOWR!" The cat hissed, the back of its fur puffed up, and it scratched Sakura's face multiple times.

Luckily, Sakura was wearing her trademark goggles.

So only her lower cheeks got clawed. But Sakura was a small sensitive girl who never experienced death or pain, so she screamed and cried and slapped the cat back. "OW! Ugghhhhh."

Seeing tears trail down her eyes, the cat stopped as it leapt back. "Ywou're obwiously not an ewemy. Who are yow? Ower new summoner?"

Sakura stopped crying. Inner berated herself. **Cha!** **I'm an idiot, getting defeated by a cat of all things?! What would happen when I face a real shinobi on a real mission?!** She glared at even smaller cat.

"I just wanted to test out this scroll! I mean, I've read about the three sannin—only legendary ninja have animal summons so I thought—I mean, I didn't know it would actually work—"

"Mew! I swence no hostile intent, and yow haw emotions on yew face." The cat licked its paw. "The last Uchiwa summoner died yewers ago, and thew never ever need ower help. Uchiwa are strong in battle and thew eyes strong for twacking and thew haw lots wa money and dwon't count wus as one of thwem anywore."

…

"Wait so, you're telling me that you're going to ditch the Uchiha just to join me?" Sakura was flabbergasted.

"Yup."

"And you're going to convince the rest of your family that this is the best choice?"

"Thew awready think so."

Sakura snapped her mouth shut.

Then, she giggled. "I'll buy you some catnip on the way home."

They shared a grin.

* * *

><p>春<p> 


	11. Chapter 11

春

* * *

><p><em>Sasuke Uchiha…Uchiha clan. This clan.<em>

_Sakura Haruno…Haruno clan..**Heh, I wish**. I'm just a civilian. But Naruto? _

_Naruto Uzumaki…Uzumaki…Uzumaki…clan? _

"Found anything on the Uzumaki, Toru-kun?"

"Mew. Says here Uzumaki were distant answesters to the Uchiwa thwu the Senju. They were also gweat at fuuinjutsu."

"WHOA!" Sakura spun around and stared at her new kitty friend, and took in the fasinating sight of the feline standing on its hind legs atop a ladder, pinning an open book against a bookshelf while balancing everything precariously with its tail pointed outward.

_That dobe has a clan? One that's related to my future boyfri—Sasuke-kun? That would make him my brother-in-law._

**Cha! How can you be his sister and mom at the same time?! **

"It's a small world out here." _Despite Konoha being the largest hidden village_. "I bet everyone's connected in some way," Sakura mused, not knowing how close that comment struck home.

"Say, you're a smart cat. How do you know all this?"

The cat made a dry face. "I twold ya I was in the war and thew were War Heros."

"Oh. Right. You're older than you look," Sakura changed the subject, "So about the Uzumaki being—"

"They were wargeted in thew war, but thew clan died out cuz thew were too good at fuuinjutsu but not at fwighting."

"…" Sakura looked down, pink locks covering her eyes. _Maybe if things were different, then maybe Naruto would have had a clan to fall back on, or even a heirloom._

**_Heirloom_? Forehead, you thinking what I'm thinking? **

Sakura's head shot up as an idea flashed through her head. The implications were deliquescing. She stared at Toru.

"S-Sealing, you said? You mean those scrolls where you write characters and drawings with a paintbrush?"

"Yap."

"Find me everything you can on seals. I think they'll keep the orange roach busy…From distracting my time with Sasuke-kun." Sakura smirked, deciding to keep the real reason to herself.

"Not that he has the patience to hold a brush. But if I can just convince him it's for a prank…"

* * *

><p>春<p>

* * *

><p>Iruka-sensei was writing on the chalkboard about using the clone jutsu and the transform jutsu in conjunction. It was an extra credit assignment if a student could actually pull it off, but it was still necessary to learn as one of the shinobi battle tactics.<p>

Although one glance at the class displayed bored faces and…at the back of the room, his pinkette student and his blonde student chatting…

Or was that Sakura explaining the lesson to Naruto?

Iruka thought back of that night at Ichiraku's with Sakura. He smiled. Perhaps she took his words to heart. Iruka turned back to the board and made sure to explain even more useful battle tactics, seeing how Naruto was actually getting involved, albeit through a secondhand information source.

What he didn't know was that Sakura wasn't reteaching his lesson…

Sakura was instructing Naruto on fuuinjutsu. An advanced art that only legendary shinobi could thoroughly master.

But not for a bookworm like herself, and surprisingly, Naruto was learning at a pace just as fast as hers initially.

Sakura had three theories. (Sakura loved theories.)

1. Naruto was an Uzumaki and thus he was naturally gifted in the sealing arts.

2. Naruto was an orphan with no friends and no one to teach him, that's why he acts stupid, but when someone actually teaches him, he's just as smart as she is.

3. Naruto was trying his absolute ultimate best because he's being acknowledged and taught by someone (regardless of the lesson,) and that's why he's improving so fast.

Sakura doubted it was the first reason. Uzumaki had red hair and Naruto had yellow. In the shinobi world, orphans usually had fake last names. (Sakura wondered why she believed for a second Naruto was a real Uzumaki, but even if he wasn't one, Sakura wasn't going to regret passing him the Uzumaki heirloom, because that wasn't her intention. Her intention was to keep Naruto busy from sabotaging her dates with Sasuke-kun. Sakura nodded to herself. Yes, that's definitely the reason she was doing this.) Anyhow, the point was, there was no gurantee that Naruto was from the Uzumaki clan just because he was a fast learner at what she was teaching.

Besides, she was leaning more towards the second reason. Maybe the third, seeing how smitten Naruto was about her.

She sighed fondly. "Idiot."

"What? What? So is this how it works?" Naruto showed Sakura his notebook with a spiral marking and a few kanji for 'genjutsu storage' in a very ugly handwriting scrawled around the circle.

"Yeah yeah, now make at least a hundred of those and we'll use it to play our prank, **after **class. Now leave me alone until after you're done."

"Alright!"

_Well, that's one way to get that idiot off my back. I really need to see Sasuke now. _

She shot a look at Sasuke and Ino-pig sitting only a couple feet away from her crush.

At the same time, Ino shot suspicious glances back towards Sakura. Ino could fanthom why Sakura would willingly give up her seat, which was closest to Sasuke's, for the seat right beside the class clown. _Sakura hated Naruto, so why? _Ino bit her teeth, resolving to master her Mind Transfer Technique just so she could look inside Sakura's head.

**Inner** Sakura cracked her knuckles, having guessed Ino's thoughts. _Bring it on, pig_**.**

What she didn't know was that they had a prank to plan.

Tonight.

* * *

><p>春<p> 


	12. Chapter 12

Flashback

* * *

><p>Naruto had pulled Sakura over to his favorite ramen stand.<p>

She took one look at old man Teuchi and instantly felt conditioned remorse about an old man overworking alone cooking ramen for a barely scraped living. Then Ayame came up and helped.

Sakura marginally relaxed.

"This is Ayame, my daughter."

Sakura completely relaxed.

Then they ate ramen.

* * *

><p>春<p>

* * *

><p>"Thank you, Sakura. These groceries were getting a little heavy and lately you haven't been helping." The words were spoken with a note of disappointment.<p>

Sakura straightened up, alarmed. "I'm sorry Sawa-san. It's just—I've been training—and"

The old lady wailed. "All our younglings go off training to be shinobi then die in missions! That lil' time we scaped up together gone permanently!"

"Sa-Sawa-san!" Sakura held up her hands in a pacifying attempt. "I'll—I'll be sure to come by more often. I'll never forget you." Her smile looked a little forced, though.

"Hohoho~" Hana came up. "Is that you teasing our little Sakura-chan?"

The two old ladies shared a smile, apparently trading an invisible conversation, before turning to Sakura.

"How about you join a picnic with us?"

**That came outta nowhere. **

Sakura's mouth twitched. "U-Uh, sure!" She had been learning from them more than helping them anyway. She was starting to miss the good feeling.

"Delightful. I'll make sure all of us elders will be attending."

Sakura sweatdropped. _A picnic filled with old people, ahaha, fun, fun._

* * *

><p>春<p>

* * *

><p>Itachi Uchiha may have been a man who controlled which emotions his face revealed, its default one being none at all, but never let it be said that Itachi was an emotionless, heartless killer.<p>

What a normal person felt, he felt a thousand times stronger.

He was an Uchiha. 'Nuff said.

So when he was arriving home from a double agent mission after reporting to the Hokage about the elders plus his father still planning about the coup de'tat, he was surprised to see said elders, ALL of them, sitting outside having a picnic in the field with a little pink haired girl around Sasuke's age.

They didn't look like the evil old men plotting Konoha's demise like at their secret meetings. They looked like innocent senile old people just enjoying the sun with their non-Uchiha grandchild.

What the heck.

These people were racist and hated all non-Uchihas. They were the ones stuck in their old ways and refused to accept anyone outside the clan, which was why they wanted to fight all of Konoha in the first place. So why are they accepting an outrageous outsider and looking happy about it?

Itachi shook his head and hurried home. It was better not to hesitate about the people you were planning to kill.

* * *

><p>春<p>

* * *

><p>Sakura perked up from the egg and tomato and salad sandwich she was eating. It was a crowded but nicely spaced area, with all the old people gathered. Even the wheelchaired civilian ones. They all had black hair and wrinkly skin, it made Sakura feel out of place. Even more so when they shared double-innuendos and jokes only old people understood. <em>Ugh.<em>

Suddenly her eyes landed on a young Uchiha, who looked eerily similar to Sasuke, hurrying across the field. Her heart skipped a beat when he hesitated and swept his gaze across all the elders with mild disdain and suspicion, before landing on her, and stared at her for an eternity with demonic red eyes.

She wasn't sure if she was feeling fear or excitement.

Then he scurried off like a mouse.

Sakura snorted. No way was she _afraid_ of a loser like him. She was probably just excited he looked like Sasuke-kun.

_Sasuke-kun._

Sakura's cheeks flushed. Luckily, her glasses were on and its recording device was on. So now, she could easily create some posters of this _older boy_, and paste him all over her bedroom walls. Briefly, she wondered why she hadn't already done that with Sasuke's image.

**Forehead, you didn't have these glasses back then. And then you got sidetracked.**

"Oh."

Sakura smiled. Regardless of whatever, Itachi's beautiful face filled the final quota required for _their_ prank...After she finished Naruto's fuuinjutsu lessons.

* * *

><p>春<p> 


	13. Chapter 13

_"Why use paint when you can use genjutsu?" -Sakura to Naruto, upon planning to deface the Hokage Monument  
><em>

* * *

><p>春<p>

* * *

><p>Naruto wiped the bead of sweat from his forehead. That sneaky Sakura! Forcing him to tear hundreds of sheets from his notebook and sticking them to the giant stone faces of the Hokages!<p>

All while she sat there at the top sunbathing!

And he worked hard on those sheets too! It felt like a waste to have spent five minutes per looseleaf paper to draw each "perfect seal," only to have the sheets get wet with dirt and mud as they stuck to various parts of rock noses, eyes, chins, cheeks, and hair.

Sakura, being the nerd she was, knew the humid air of this day would wet the moss and moisture on the Hokage Monument. It saved them the work of using glue to stick the seals to the stones when the environment did all the work. All Naruto had to do was slap a few pieces of paper over the stone heads and they stick automatically. _It's either that, or chakra has the tendency to stick and genjustsu seals are filled with chakra._

She couldn't see what was so hard about it or why Naruto was so frustrated. _I mean, it's not like he's the one doing the work for the genjutsu anyway. That unappreciative roach. Sometimes I wonder why I even help him._

Nonetheless, the fact that they learned tree-walking early on certainly helped.

"YATTA! SAKURA-CHAN SAKURA-CHAN-SAKURA-SAKURA-SAKU-SAKURA-CHAN-CHAN-CHAN I FINISHED YIPPIE I'M SO AWESOME YOU SHOULD SEE-"

"SHUT UP YOU IDIOT!" _Punch._

Naruto was knocked off the middle of standing horizontally on the stone face right after pasting on the last of his sheet, but Sakura swooped down and grabbed his hand, her other hand clinging on the nose of the Yondaime Hokage with the little chakra she has. Her body felt stretched and her dress was getting torn as she held on to Naruto's life with one hand and the chakra-augmented rock with her other._ Crap I hit him too hard at the worse location possible._

Then they fell.

**Cha! Since you're doing so spectacularly, might as well go the whole way, right?!**

She released Naruto, _he can handle himself,_ and formed a hand seal mid-fall before the distance from the seals grew too large.

"Release!"

Suddenly, all the paper tags vanished in smoke and...

The four stone heads reshaped themselves.

Shodaime Hashirama Senju → Sasuke.

Niidaime Tobirama Senju → Itachi. (This came as a shock to him when he saw it.)

Sandaime Hiruzen Sarutobi → Sakura.

Yondaime Minato Namikaze → Naruto.

Then they ran.

They got split up in their frenzied escape, but that only ensured they weren't caught by the authorities.

Sakura wanted her stone face to be between Sasuke's and Itachi's but Naruto had insisted her face to be beside his. Naruto also insisted that Sasuke's face be the furthest from his own face after realizing that there was no way he could convince Sakura to leave Sasuke out of it. So Sakura's face was beside Itachi's. That was their only intent in the placement of these faces, but of course Konoha did not see it this way.

They did not believe_ children_ pulled this off, and thus thought it was a message or metaphor for something else, caused by rebel groups or something.  
>After all, everyone's reactions were mixed in dilemmas and panic.<p>

Civilians wondered whether the shinobi were fooling around or the leadership roles switched.

_Certain_ people gaped they saw the 4th's face being replaced by his son's.

For the first time in his lifespan, Kakashi dropped his orange book in utter shock. Thus, he lost it somewhere among the crowd and the controversy. Thus, he would be late for his daily Obito mourning at the Memorial Stone. When Kakashi is late, he is very late. (Psst. Hint. Important foreshadowing here!).

Also, the entirety of the Uchiha clan stared shocked at the sight of _Uchiha faces_ being on the Hokage Monument.

But not in a good way, as it seemed like they were being mocked. Specifically, they were outraged at Tobirama's face being replaced by Itachi's, since Tobirama was the worst Hokage in the Uchiha's opinion.

And the worst part, for the 3rd Hokage especially...No one really recognized Sakura's face. There were lots of girls with long hair and exposed foreheads. Sasuke, Naruto, and Itachi's hairstyles were distinct and anyone who knew them could tell what the reshaped stones represented. But not quite for Sakura. Even if the Hokage sent out a search party to find someone with those features, there were too many of those in the civilian population.

Maybe whoever pulled this off just slapped on some random girl's appearance, seeing how Sarutobi was still an alive Hokage.

Sarutobi pinched the bridge of his nose and clamped his teeth down his smoke pipe. Obviously Naruto didn't have the brain to do this. Itachi most_ definitely_ didn't do this. That left _Sasuke Uchiha._

It was time for a _talk_ for that prodigious and precocious boy that he formerly reserved only for Naruto.

* * *

><p>春<p>

* * *

><p>Somewhere in the Uchiha clan, a few old women stared at Sakura's stone monument in faint recognition, but no way in hell were they going to report their sweet little girl.<p>

* * *

><p>春<p> 


	14. Chapter 14

"I didn't do it," The eight year old boy declared.

Sarutobi shuffled his paperwork. "Several jounin spotted sheets of paper appear on various locations of the Monument. Upon further investigation, these were _genjutsu_ seals, created and restricted _only_ to the _Uchiha_ clan."

Sasuke's eye twitched. "Is that why I'm here instead of the dobe?"

Sarutobi was about to speak- but Sasuke interrupted. "Wait, how do you know so much about the details of my clan's _secret_ techniques?"

Sarutobi closed his mouth. This child was sharper than his innocent appearance betrayed. The Uchiha clan had been planning to rebel against the village, so obviously he had to take precautions to prepare for the worst case scenario like a war. He assigned ANBU and planted spies, including double agents such as Itachi, to dig out as many techniques as possible, to have countermeasures against them should the war break out.

No one else in the Uchiha knew this.

But that wasn't quite true. It was the privacy-invading actions like these which flamed Uchiha opinion against the village in the first place.

Sarutobi swallowed. "I am the Hokage, the strongest leader of Konoha. It is not unbelievable for a professor of my wisdom to know many things, especially about a clan that was here ever since the founding of this village."

Sarutobi had an idea to dig himself out of this hole. "I am giving you one chance. Let us both forget _any_ of this ever happened, no talk, no lecture, no prank, and you may go home. Do not mention what you did."

"But I didn't do-"

"Nope. You did nothing, so cleanse it all from your memory. You are dismissed. Return home and work hard at school."

Sasuke grunted and left.

"Hn."

* * *

><p>桜<p>

* * *

><p><em>Tobi <em>was_ enduring_. He had to do it for the new world. Madara, e_veryone_ was counting on him. Kakashi, _Rin_, Minato-sensei.

_All of us will be together again_. _I promise_.

Occasionally, he could feel his willpower breaking. Wondering why he was taking so many lives, why he was dishing out commands to massacre every kekkei genkai user in Kirigakure, or why, even now, he was plotting the death of his _own clan_. It felt_ wrong_ to have to kill the Uchiha he grew up with-and the fact that he had to do this, was exactly the wrongness of the world...This evil world was what he was trying to _fix_.

_Once everything is over, once everyone gets their happy endings, I'll be allowed to relax._

Still, something tugged in his chest about the helpless elderly population, but that was impossible, Tobi didn't have a heart anymore. _Obito is long dead. _

The eyehole of his spiral mask darkened.

_There must be a price of sacrifices for the utopia everyone will love. Besides, they aren't true sacrifices. These people will be back with us, in a better world. The Moon's Eye. The fixed world.  
><em>

_Someday they'll thank us...for returning their loved ones. _

So why was it _so difficult_? He couldn't afford to slow down, not when the 3rd stage of his plan is already in place.

Oh, but that's okay. All Tobi needed was just a little motivation. When times grew brutal, he could always count on Kakashi mourning at his Memorial Stone.

He appreciated it, but for all the wrong reasons.

Tobi chuckled. If he went and forced himself to stare at Kakashi staring at his name for ten minutes, he'd feel motivated again, motivated to continue on with the Moon's Eye Plan! He had to save Kakashi, after all.

_Tobi isn't saving just himself._

So he kamui'd out of the Mizukage office and materialized into the forest across the Memorial Stone. Kakashi was always on schedule, so Tobi peered at his KIA stone while suppressing his chakra completely.

But...Kakashi wasn't there.

_What. _

What he didn't know was that Kakashi was too busy searching for his Icha Icha novel and dealing with the investigation of the Hokage Monument Prank. Thus, he was not here today. And that someone else would be coming instead.

In denial, Tobi's Sharingan seemed to float closer to the clearing before his body completely materialized, Akatsuki cloak and everything. So what if he got caught, he could always time-space himself away. This was an important matter! Something must be wrong with Kakashi to miss his mourning time like this!

Tobi wobbled over to the stone and looked for the spot with the words "Obito Uchiha," then he distinctly sensed a chakra signature arriving in top civilian running speed. It was just a child's chakra, so Tobi could totally play around and mindfuck the kid before running off!

_But._

_Better safe and sorry._

_Especially at a place like this._

So Tobi flailed and ran back into the treeline of the forest, and peered from the side of the tree he was hidden in, as the child came into view. _It's a kawaii little girl with pink hair_.

She was barely 10 to 20 meters away, and she didn't seem to sense him.

Tobi's Mangekyou Sharingan widened as the girl stopped in front of the Memorial Stone, panting hard and searching for a name.

_Heh. At so young, and she's already lost a mother to war. But that's okay, eventually I'm going to bring her mother back. _

He smiled behind his mask. He didn't need Kakashi for motivation. He's got this girl instead.

Tobi started sucking himself back into his dimension, already motivated enough to continue on with his plans, feeling no need to hear the private talk she was going to have with her dead mother.

"Ah! Sorry I'm late, Obito!"

Tobi _froze_.

"Hana-san wanted me to visit you and I never got the chance-Oh did I drop-Ah whew, look I've got your old goggles. Aren't they cute? Oh wait, you're dead, haahaha!"

Tobi shivered, doubts flitting through his mind a hundred a second. Then, he _bristled_.

"They said you were just like me, you helped old people out. Did you do it because you felt useless and weak? Ahahahah!" Sakura was giggling.

Murderous amounts of chakra pulled into his single eye, preparing to cast a genjutsu.

Brain damage? Nah, she'll be fine once everything's finally over, though it may take a few decades. Jinchuuriki were hard to catch.

She_ deserved_ what was she was going to get. How dare she _mock_ him.

"Shannaro~! You should've seen what I just did with the-"

This time it was Sakura who suddenly froze, sweat droplets sliding down her face, green eyes wide with trepidation.

Sadistically, Tobi smirked. _Time for you to get mindfucked._

* * *

><p>桜<p> 


	15. Chapter 15

鬼

* * *

><p><em>Pant. Pant. <em>

_Sweat. Sweat._

_Heave. Heave._

Sakura's muscles burned as she sprinted away from the prank location. Somehow in her blind escape, she ended up here.

The Memorial Stone that the old grandma kept telling her to visit, but she never did. _I always put it off because I have better things to do than stare at some names on a stone. I'll never understand what old people think. _

Despite so, Sakura stood before the stone and stared. (There wasn't anything better to look at anyway.)

Finally finding the name, she grinned. "Sorry I'm late, Obito!" _Like, really late. _

"Hana-san wanted me to visit you and I never got the chance-" _I never planned to come_...

A jolt of shame dug into her emotions. That would go against what the old people's feelings. Then, her feelings switched sides Flashbacks and memories of what the old women say.

_They only think of me as Obito's replacement. They don't see me for who I really am and they don't really appreciate my help. They only want to be reminded of Obito! These goggles prove it. Wait, do I still have them on?_

"Oh did I drop-Ah whew, look I've got your old goggles. Aren't they cute? Oh wait, you're dead, haahaha!"

_Your death is the reason they're so nice to me. Hahaaha, it's obviously why they bothered to teach me anything! _

"They said you were just like me, you helped old people out. Did you do it because you felt useless and weak?" _Because that's how I feel!_ "Ahahahah!" Sakura giggled hard, clutching her stomach.

She felt insane, sad, selfish and relieved, happy, and hurt, all at the same time. She tried to stop these flurry of unwelcome feelings,_ Rule #25. "A shinobi must never show their emotions." _Yet no matter what she tried, she felt nothing could stop these strong emotions. _  
><em>

Then_, something_ suddenly froze all those emotions, and Sakura was, once again, proven wrong.

**Forehead! Someone's trying to invade your mind! **

Her eyes widened in trepidation. _What do you mean someone?! I checked and there's no one here! It's impossible to cast a genjutsu at this distance! Trust me I tried-_

**Save the thought for later! I can't hold it back much longer!  
><strong>

_DON'T! I CAN'T LET HIM INSIDE! I HAVE TO FIGHT! _

Iruka-sensei hadn't taught the class how to dispell genjutsu yet. Sakura learned to cast genjutsu from the Uchiha elders, but they hadn't thought to teach her how to dispel them, since they always relied on the Sharingan for that task. Sakura, in panic, had to improvise. So, she powered up her Inner to meet the enemy head-on.

There was the sound of two strong spiritual forces colliding, a hundred explosions slamming her eardrums.

Sakura clutched her head and screamed.

There was the sound of a blanket thin membrane squishing out a wet, gummy sound right in between.

**The barrier will be crushed by the pushing of my force and the outsider's force!**** AT THIS RATE YOUR BRAIN WILL TURN INTO MUSH! **

Then, there was the sound of paper tearing.

It was all in her head.

_God god god what do I do, I can't go brain dead now!  
><em>

She resolved herself. _My mind is is MY domain! **I'll win this! **So, stop resisting and let the enemy inside! Just protect my vitals and make sure I get no permanent brain damage, Inner! The rest I'll handle myself! _

It was a brave thought, but Sakura was scared as fuck. She sweated. She shivered. _Is this what a real battle is like? I'm not ready to be a ninja. _Against her will, tears formed in her eyes as she started crying. _Naru-no, why am I thinking of that useless idiot. Sasuke-kun, save me!_ Even though she knew that wasn't going to happen. Um, _nevermind, don't save me. _

Then, the foreign entity slipped into her mind, much smoother than before, without **Inner** Sakura's interference.

_Inner_?

Inner didn't respond.

* * *

><p>鬼<p> 


	16. Chapter 16

_Okay, he's inside our domain. I can fight him here. I know my own mind better than anyone. _She reassured herself.

[Whew! That was harder than I expected and I accidentally destroyed her entire mentality. But, that's what she gets for resisting.] It was a foreign voice, male, raspy. And creepy.

Sakura reacted the only way she knew how:_ Get out of my mind! PUNCH._

[OW! ... You're still here? But I just killed you...] It was more a statement than a question.

_Is that why my Inner stopped responding?! YOU-YOU-HOW DARE-WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?! I'LL KILL YOU! _

[Heheheh. Nope, it's futile no matter what you do. And don't you think this what you deserve for trying to impersonate me?]

..._What?_

The foreign spirit sounded a sigh. [I'm the_ real_ Obito Uchiha. So, stop pretending to be me.]

_That's impossible! Obito is dead! Everyone said so! _

[It's true, I am dead. I've been dead for more than a decade from the moment I saw the hard truth of this world.]

_Uhm, what? Whatever, just, how did you get inside my head then? If you're dead. _

A silence. She could hear the gears turning in the other spirit's head, however impossible that was. Then, she heard him smile. It was the type of smile you make from amusement at someone's stupidity. She twitched.

[I'm actually a ghost.]

_WHAT?! That's..that's.._

[Think about it. You're safe inside Konoha, so there aren't any enemy nin. And why would any Leaf ninja try to attack you?]

_Oh gee, I wonder why,_ Sakura responded dryly, thinking back of that Hokage prank that would undoubtedly stir up any respectful ninja's wrath.

[And you're at the Memorial Stone, completely by yourself, miles away. Hint, _Memorial Stone_? You're a smart girl, you would have sensed any ALIVE person.]

He was right. Sakura's glasses displayed chakra signatures. What she didn't know was that Obito had been using a kamui trick in his chakra suppression technique, among other complex stuff.

_I believe you. So, what am I supposed to say? I'm so sorry I tarnished your memory? Please don't curse me?_

[..Show some regret.]

_... Please! I'll-I- I won't do it again-_

[Ahaha, you're funny. I like you.~

She tuned out of his dialogue to access her mental state. It felt weird without her Inner mentality in control. She briefly wondered if she could fix that shattered mentality. It had to be scattered around her mindscape somewhere. She tuned back into Obito's speaking (it was hard to pay attention to him at the same time without two of her personalities in place)

~realized that some people are just nice little girls, so just be yourself. And, sorry that I scared you...I haven't talked _normally_ like this for over ten years and I died too early to learn how to talk to girls. . . Because, it's impossible for the dead to communicate with the living, but you're special. I believe you are the only one in this world with this ability, although it probably only works on me.]

Sakura gasped. She had a...kekkei genkai..for this? That would explain why this was even possible. She always knew she had two personalities, a facade that was a part of her, and her inner thoughts. Maybe her mind can allow entities to live inside and that's how a ghost slipped in? Plus, it was more than that. _She was the only one who can._

Somewhere in her unconscious, her inferiority complex convulsed, desperately grasping at his words. That desperate need for acceptance from the old people had switched off earlier when she realized they didn't see Sakura as Sakura, but as Obito's substitute.

Now, that desperate yearning returned, ironically, to a ghost. It was laughable that a person who appreciated her for who she was, had to be a dead person.

_Wow, I'm so useless that only the ghosts like me as Sakura, _she thought to herself sardonically.

The foreign voice continued.

[There isn't much that goes on in the afterlife, well, since I never ended up going there...being stuck here and all. Heheh. I think it's because I still have a duty to complete for this world, despite being dead. Heheh, I'll be around for a very long time. In fact, why don't we meet directly in your mindscrape? There's a lot I want to talk to you about, and you're the only one who I can really relate to, being a lonely ghost and all. Heh.]

Sakura swallowed, hard. Here was a nice boy who helped old people, but when he finally died, he's denied entry into heaven?! She could totally relate to this guy, and if he ended up this way, then what did fate have in store for her?!_ I don't wanna be a ghost!_

Then she started reprimanding herself, _Don't be selfish, Sakura! Thinking of yourself all the time! He's been stuck haunting this world all alone for decades! And when he's finally managed to find someone he could talk to, you're gonna deny him his companionship?! You might end up like him, what then?! What would Sasu- no, the old grandmas and grandpas think, Sakura?!_

It would be easier to attempt to fix her **Inner**, Sakura mused. Plus, Obito wasn't untrustworthy, if the stuff the elders said about him were reliable.

Completely forgiving and forgetting his initial murderous intent, Sakura should really learn to hold grudges.

_U-Uh, okay, see you in my mind?_ Sakura mentally responded. Then, her complete conscious was pulled out of her senses into her mindscape, and due to inexperience, her physical body in the real world collapsed into the grass.


	17. Chapter 17

花

* * *

><p>Her mind must have been the vainest thing ever.<p>

Naruto's mindscape was a cellar, full of pipes and dim light, dripping sounds, two meters of sewer water and a cage containing the most powerful and legendary beast whispered only in myths. The beast was the highlight. Giant demon eyes to greet him, sharp set of fangs to mock or scare him, and nine tails capable of leveling mountains to blow him out with a gust of wind.

Sakura's?

Just **black**.

Blackness **everywhere**.

_Says a lot about my two-dimensional mentality_, Sakura would muse dryly.

The ceiling, if there was one, the floor, the horizon, all of it black. Dull, empty, nothing.

It was like she had gone blind, except she hadn't.

Because Sakura could see herself.

Her hands, her red dress, her pink bangs...

Her body illuminated as if she were outdoors in the daytime, although there was no definable light source. Her body contrasted sharply against the black, and as she looked again to the floor, she could see its shadow. But the shadow was white, and it wasn't even a shadow, but a chalk drawing of her general image. It was Inner Sakura, her feet starting from where Sakura's feet were. Like a mirror image, or a real shadow.

Like a shadow, Inner Sakura could expand and shrink at will, or more accurately, at Sakura's will, the way a shadow would to the sun. But Sakura noticed something wrong with her Inner shadow, the chalk looked erased and scattered, Inner wasn't even a drawing of Sakura anymore, but messed up scribbles!

The eyes were still there, but it looked like X_X

Sakura crossed her arms behind her back and leaned a little closer to the white shadow, eyeing it speculatively.

_Now, how to fix this? _

"Oh hey Sakura-chan," a rather young voice startled her out of her thoughts. She turned around and saw Obito walking towards her.

Obito looked younger than he sounded in her head, he looked 12 years old, a combination of Sasuke and Naruto. He had Sasuke's black hair, black eyes, pale skin tone, but also Naruto's goofy grin, goofy face structure, and goofy goggles—although his goggles matched closer to the ones Sakura was wearing. _Okay, fine, Obito looks like a combination of all three of us._

Even his voice sounded younger than before, fitting his image. She eyed him skeptically.

Unlike Sakura, Obito didn't have a white shadow. Perhaps this only applied to ghosts, but if it applied to everyone else who entered her mindscape, then Sakura could safely conclude that she was the only one with an Inner.

"Obito-san?"

"Yeah, that's me. Heheh. I died when I was twelve, and umm. My voice kinda grew up as a ghost, and ah…This is my true form, honest!"

"You're right, ghosts aren't supposed to grow up, I've read in a textbook that the form of spirits are meant to stay dormant-"

"Yeah, yeah whatever! Let's talk about something more interesting instead!" Obito interrupted.

Sakura narrowed her eyes. She had always had a bright mind, and inside it, her senses were sharpened significantly. She could feel that Obito's goofiness sounded fake, almost with a tinge of nostalgia. She shrugged it off.

_It makes sense for a ghost to be jaded about life. I mean, if I were a ghost, it'd be impossible for me to be genuinely cheerful after ten years. He's not Naruto, so I'm not going to point this out, though. Don't wanna hurt his feelings_.

Sakura smiled. "Well, what do you want to talk about, Ghost-san?" _Cha! I slipped up! That was rude! _

Obito laughed. Again, it sounded fake, but also a little sad. On the surface, it sounded happy and amused. Sakura could feel her lips tightening.

"Ah, Sakura-san, umm…Hahah! Let's just choose a topic…Umm, how about…" He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. _Another trait like Naruto. _"Umm, how's school?"

Sakura smirked, plopping herself down. Obito sat down too. "We've been learning the Transform, the Clone, and the Substitution. Say, you're a lot more awkward than earlier. Before, you knew exactly what to say and sounded…" Sakura blushed, distinctly reminded of Sasuke-kun. "…cool."

Obito blushed. "Um, sorry. You remind me of…um…An old teammate."

Sakura's eyes narrowed. Of course. To everyone, she always reminded them of someone else.

Obito stammered. "Her-Her name's Rin. But you really aren't like her, you're different, honest! It's just that you're a girl and…" Obito blushed again. "I died before I had the luxury of talking with girls."

Sakura stared, then she stifled a giggle.

Obito continued. "Also! You're a lot more fun! And you're a really good person. Helping old folks—"

"It's not like anyone else would do it after you died," Sakura pointed out.

Obito looked ashamed. Sakura raised an eyebrow, "Oi, don't feel bad. It's not your fault since you're dead."

"…Yeah." That answer was the most depressed sound she'd ever heard. Like he was burdened with all the evils of the world.

Sakura felt her stomach churn painfully, her mind flitting through things to cheer him up or at least distract him.

"Obito, you ruined my Inner, so take responsibility and fix her." Sakura pointed at her white chalk shadow.

His eyebrows rose and he looked almost desperate, before a smile forced itself into his face and he hopped over to play doctor on Inner.

Sakura was reminded of the 90-year-old bitter old man she had helped out sometimes, being placed into a 12-year old body and hollowly seeking happiness. It looked out of place, but hey, ghosts!

Sakura watched with fascination as Obito activated his Sharingan and slowly began putting the chalk lines together into a more definite outline of Sakura.

Her lips parted. "Obito-kun! Teach me to do that."

He looked at her. "Eh? But you need the Sharingan…Wait, there's two of you. I think you should be able to pull it off if you use your hands."

"HELL YES!"

* * *

><p>花<p>

* * *

><p>Sakura had patched together her Inner.<p>

It was easier than she expected! All she did was grab parts of the white power and put them back into place with her bare hands. In theory, it was similar to fuuinjutsu. You add bits and pieces together to make one big final thing, like putting words from a language together to create a command. _Something like that._

Obito had been doing half the work by using his Sharingan alone, so that made things easier.

By the time they finished, Inner Sakura had popped up, yelled "CHA! HOW DARE YOU TEAR ME ABOUT!" Before laying down for a nap.

So instead of a dead shadow, Sakura had a sleeping shadow. Still better than before.

She turned towards the ghost. "Thanks, Obito-kun."

He smiled back, apparently having warmed up to her from the hours spent together fixing Inner. "You're welcome, Sakura-chan."

They shared a grin.

Sakura broke it first. "So, you can't stay here forever, I think. And neither can I. When will we meet again?" She activated her puppy eyes and pouted. _Cha! I've practiced this expression on the mirror hundreds of times! There's no way it'll fail_!

And she was right.

Obito could feel his resolve breaking. "U-Uh…Yeah sure, we can meet again." He rubbed his head sheepishly. "But not at this time. Someone else comes to the Memorial Stone and guards it 5-9PM, 5-8AM, and—argh—" Obito scratched his hair. "Whatever, just come in the middle of the night."

Sakura blinked. "But it's dangerous, like, what if some bulgar or kidnapper gets to me?"

"No-no, I'll uh…train you to fend for yourself, heh, yeah! Haha-ha." Obito chuckled awkwardly.

Sakura felt the idea of being trained by a ghost absurd, that she couldn't help accepting the offer in her amusement.

"Okay," Sakura bit her lip and thought of securing their agreement. _Well, ghosts are lonely, so I'll play on that._ "We'll do something fun everyday...And we can tell each other all sorts of things that we can't tell people in the real world."

Obito actually looked like he was considering her words.

Seconds ticked by and he looked at her with a serious glint through his orange goggles, his voice sounding serious unlike before. "Yeah. I'd like that."

Then she woke up.

* * *

><p>花<p> 


	18. Chapter 18

It was soft, and hard at the same time. It was dirty, foreign, but clinically clean. Sakura jolted up from the bed, it wasn't hers. There were no stuffed toys or animals to occupy her childish tendencies, or her makeup kit beside her alarm clock.

Sakura was in_ someone else_'s house.

She looked around and saw the colorless white paper walls and bare minimum of furniture. The format of the room looked like one from the Uchiha compound, almost identical to the homes of the elderly she assisted. Were it any different, she would have screamed and fainted in shock of being kidnapped, but instead she took deep breaths.

_I don't recognize this place, maybe Hana or Shiko picked me up and put me in their friend's place._

She sat up and hopped off the bed, and that was when the door opened and Itachi Uchiha entered.

Sakura's jaw dropped, then she regained her senses, he was talking. "What?"

"I found you collapsed at the KIA stone; I was going to take you to the hospital. You were merely asleep, however, so I took you here instead, as I didn't feel to awaken you." He smiled slowly. "You're a deep sleeper, aren't you?"

Sakura blinked. "What?"

Itachi sighed, and walked over, lifting her under her arms and setting her back into the bed. "I brought you something to drink-"

"You're Sasuke-kun's brother!"

"...-kun?"

"I knew it! Sasuke-kun always talks about you!" It was true, the few words she did manage out of Sasuke involved something about surpassing nii-san, otherwise it was just his usual coolness.

"I take it you must be close to Sasuke."

Sakura blushed. "Well...Kinda."** Cha! Of course you are! You're going to be his future wife after all! Come on be honest!** "Yeah-real close-best friends!" Sakura blurted out before she could stop herself. **That's too much, you don't even know his favorite color. **

Itachi had a contemplating glint in his eyes. "I...see." He stood up to leave, but stopped at the door. "By the way, why did you put my face on the Hokage Monument?"

Sakura's eyes widened. _He knows! _ **How? **

He smiled sadly. "I've seen _them_ teach you."

Sakura put on her good-girl face. "Well...It wasn't my idea. I just helped out a boy a little. He did most of it." It was true, Naruto was the one to tape all the seals on.

"Interesting. When you feel better, you can leave." Itachi looked considering, though. "If your_ best friend_ is really in trouble, be there for him. He'll need it, even if he doesn't show it, don't betray him." He planned Sasuke to hate him, kill him, but not end up a psychopath while at it. A friend, Sasuke didn't have a lot of those...Itachi looked at Sakura, wondering the validity of her best friend statement. Regardless, he just had a feeling that Sakura would always be there for Sasuke, even if Sasuke only focuses on gaining power. He smiled, and exited, shutting the door behind him.

Sakura blinked. _He's talking about Naruto isn't he?  
><em>

The door reopened. "Just in case, sign this." Itachi tossed her a scroll with a crow symbol on it. "It's similar to the Cat contract the elders gave you. However, you aren't allowed to summon any. It's just a..precaution,"_ in case I can't get an emergency message to Hokage-sama fast enough. _

Sakura blinked. She didn't know Itachi was planning to slaughter his clan, defect Konoha, and become a spy for the Akatsuki. So she wondered why, but nonetheless, unwrapped the scroll, sliced her thumb with a kunai and wrote her name neatly on the row. She licked her finger clean. "Thanks," she appreciated in confusion.

Itachi nodded slowly, and shut the door.

* * *

><p><strong>Author Note<strong>: Sorry it took so long! I'm going to start up my daily updates again. The reason Itachi handed Sakura the crow summon was because there was no one else. Itachi couldn't pass it off to one of his ANBU or Jounin friends because he was going to become criminal in their eyes, and they'd surely dispose of the contract or try to use it to track him down, or kill as many crows as possible. They were suspicious adult shinobi. So, Itachi could pass it onto Sasuke, but that's not a good idea, because he plans to make Sasuke focus on revenge and there's no way he'd "report missing-nin secrets to the Hokage" just because Itachi's crow told him to. So, the best idea was to pass it onto some random child, not an Uchiha child since he was going to kill them anyway, but an outsider child. Not old enough to be overly suspicious, but not young enough to be useless. He could have passed it to some random civilian kid even, as long as the child is clanless and guaranteed to become a ninja.


	19. Chapter 19

櫻

* * *

><p>Sakura blushed.<p>

She was in Sasuke-kun's house! She clasped her hands together over her mouth and squealed! She's making progress! Sure it took half a year or an eternity but finally! And it wasn't even her intention. Karma must be on her side.

Sakura decided to explore the house, but she was more worried about what if some old lady fell on her face in the street? So Sakura walked over to the window and pulled it up. Arrrgh!

After twenty seconds of trying to get the thing up, she stuck a foot out the window, before the door slammed open, revealing a panting Sasuke.

"What are you doing in nii-san's room, fangirl?!"

It was the first time she had seen Sasuke-kun so angry, and his sudden appearance after so long shocked Sakura more than that time with the ghost! Her mouth gasped, she lost all sense of balance, and fell out the window.

Luckily, she was on the 1st floor unlike last time.

Laying sprawled out on her back, her feet pressed against the wall, she stared up as Sasuke peeked his face out the window to peer down at her.

Eep! Sakura closed her legs, hoping Sasuke didn't see her panties although she wouldn't mind if he did.

Sasuke huffed and slammed the window shut. Then the window opened and she heard a shout "You're so **annoying**! Always following me, asking me out. Just when I think you've left me alone, you show up in aniki's room! Don't ever come again! Or you'll regret it." Promptly the window was nailed shut.

_Don't cry don't cry don't cry don't cry don't cry don't cry don't cry don't cry don't cry don't cry don't cry_

**Cha! He was probably too surprised to see you that's all! Someone must have put him in a bad mood beforehand! It must be Naruto! Go beat him up or punish him for Sasuke-kun or something! **

Inner wasn't helping. Sakura was paralyzed, shaking, and still chanting in her head. Finally, the tears returned back inside her eyes and she stood up, dusting her dress. There was an old person she needed to help.

_How about Hana?_

Sakura nodded. "Yeah, she's going to need some help. What did Ob- I mean, _he_ say about Hana?"

**She likes pineapples. **

Sakura smirked, wiping her eyes. Yes, Hana was in for a big surprise at how Sakura "guessed" Hana's favorite fruit.

Sakura weaved a few hand seals, used her leftover blood, and slammed it to the grass. Koneko was summoned. He was gray with silver stripes. He licked his paw and gave her a look that reminded of her Sasuke-kun's, the 'I'm too cool for you' look.

Sakura dug her hand into her red pocket and handed the cat some ryo bills. "Go to the supermarket and buy a pineapple for me."

The cat snorted. "Lazyass."

Sakura placed her hands on her hips and gave a stern look.

The cat sighed, taking the money in its mouth and running off.

* * *

><p>櫻<p>

* * *

><p>Koneko's yellow eyes scanned the supermarket stalls before leaping onto the pineapple section and taking the large leafy stem of the pineapple in its mouth. T<em>he sooner I get this over with, the better.<em>

Pouncing over to the cashier, Koneko dropped the money and meowed.

The cashier was too shocked to take the money, he just kept staring at Koneko.

"What? I bet you don't treat the Inuzuka dogs this way." Koneko got tired of the gawks and picked up the pineapple, ready to leap off and return to Sakura.

The cashier snapped back to senses and said, "Oh! That's not enough money, the price was raise-" _Poof._

The cat and pineapple vanished, replaced with a large amount of smoke that seeped into the cashier's eyes, and the impression that the cat had raised its middle finger as a wave.

"GET BACK HERE!" The cashier shouted at nothing.

* * *

><p>櫻<p>

* * *

><p>Sakura had resummoned Koneko. "Sorry, I didn't feel like waiting for you to return and figured this was fastest-Wow, that's a very large pineapple. I didn't give you that much money did I-"<p>

Koneko thrust the pineapple at her face and she caught it like a basketball, although the sharp points cut into her hands. "Ow!" She screeched, high-pitched.

Koneko's ears lowered and he hissed back, "You almost got me arrested. I'm not your lapcat. Get Meneko to do it next time-She's a suckup."

"Idiot, this is just once, and," Sakura reached into her pocket and tossed Koneko a bag of catnip. "Thanks for your help."

Catching it with his fangs, he tilted his muzzle attempting to grin. "A whole bag? Don't expect me to share, Saku-kun."

She shuddered at the nickname, and Koneko vanished before she could scold him.

* * *

><p>櫻<p>

* * *

><p>Taking the pineapple to Hana's house, Sakura climbed inside through the backwindow (Yes, she does this a lot) and landed onto the dining floor. She was surprised to find that there were ten other old people inside.<p>

"Um guys, what's going on?"

"Oh Sakura-chan! I'm s-So sorry! Is that a pineapple?!" Sawa burst into tears. This was not usual, old people tended to get emotional at the smallest things, maybe Sawa was touched and happy.

Shiko came up, and patted Sawa's back, and cleared his throat. He stared deep into Sakura's emerald eyes, and said, "I'm sorry to say this, Sakura, but Hana-chan didn't wake up from bed this morning from natural causes of old age.

Hana-chan is dead."

The pineapple dropped to the floor, crushed into a million wet pieces.

* * *

><p>櫻<p>

* * *

><p>Unbeknownst to her, Tobi smiled.<p> 


	20. Chapter 20

花

* * *

><p>"How can that be?!" Sakura shouted, her heatbeat doubling. She ran upstairs and stared at Hana's cold body. Hana was the first old person she ever helped!<p>

She ignored the bunch of old people slowly making their way after her, and felt a sudden compulsion. Sakura forced as much green chakra to her palms as possible.

Hana was the one who made medical ninjutsu possible for her.

Sakura pushed the healing chakra towards Hana's chest. She got a diagnosis but no heartbeat. She pumped, and pumped, and pumped, but Hana-san won't revive.

A wrinkly hand squeezed her shoulder, and she finally looked up. Sawa was shaking her head. "It's natural for old people to die. There's no cure to it, we're die soon too."

Sakura's fists clenched. "No!"

"Sakura, we know you're upset, but that's a part of life."

"No! I won't let you die! Any of you! I'll-I'll," Sakura took in all the mourning faces, none of them had any sleep, their eyebags evident and their skin crested from crying. "I'll become the best medic nin ever and bring Hana back!" She didn't feel like herself, those weren't her words, yet at the same time they were, they were what her heart desired, what her **Inner** might have voiced, but never the real Sakura. It was such a noble promise built upon fantasy, yet it was still a promise, and Sakura was not one to break promises, not even to the idiot Naruto.

"Sakura-chan, you can't bring people from the dead."

"I'll heal her!"

"You can't. She's dead. The funeral will be held in six days."

Sakura felt the pent up tears from the earlier dispute with Sasuke build up in her eyes, and soaked down her cheeks. She wiped her face. Sakura was a pretty girl, and pretty girls don't cry, crying is ugly. Sakura turned heel and fled, she ran down the stairs and burst out the door, running back to the only friend she could confide in. Naruto was too stupid to understand, Sasuke hated her, and Ino was her rival. Obito-kun was the only one who knew Hana, sure he may be a ghost but Sakura didn't give a shit.

* * *

><p>花<p>

* * *

><p>It started raining. Sakura was drenched, her pink hair trailing over her shoulders and her red dress clinging to her body. She didn't care. "Obito...kun," she weakly whispered to the marble KIA stone.<p>

She felt something prod her mind and accepted it like it was a part of her own system.

* * *

><p>花<p>

* * *

><p>Sakura blinked. She was back in her black mindscape, Inner standing like a giant mirage above her with her arms crossed, like a guardian of sorts.<p>

Obito stood before Sakura, they were nearly the same height, but Obito a few inches taller. Well, he was 12.

"Let me guess, Hana-san is dead."

Sakura nodded, not questioning the knowledge of ghosts.

"I met with her just now," he lied easily, "She's wants to come back to life again, but hey, who doesn't, hell, even I want to."

Sakura looked at him with hope in her eyes.

"Hana told me that corpses have no connection towards dead souls, so they make better use as contribution for the living world. Hana said she wouldn't want her dead body to be wasted, rotting in a grave, when it could help your medical studies, perhaps even to revive her." Obito's smile widened impossibly, it looked almost creepy.

But that wasn't on Sakura's mind. She was staring at Obito with new-found interest. "H-Hana-san really said that?"

"Especially her eyes."

"B-But," Sakura's mind flashed through the possibilities. "I-I can't just take Hana's corpse from the funeral. That's impossible, it would feel wrong and-"

"Sakura-chan, what's more important? Your feelings, or Hana's revival?"

Sakura looked down. "My feelings should come last."

"Good girl." Obito looked full of mirth, as if laughing at an inside joke she wouldn't get.

Sakura felt a large hand land onto her head and ruffle her hair into more of a mess, it was the same motion Minato did to Obito and Kakashi, that Kakashi would do to Naruto and Sasuke in the future. She leaned closer to the hand, its touch the only "physical" comfort she could hope to get, even though it was all in her head.

"Sakura, I'm not saying you should take Hana's body for research," he shuddered, "That _would_ be wrong. The others have set up a funeral and everything, but you should take this scenario as preparation...What if an Uchiha dies? I want you to take their eyes. The Sharingan has the power to learn techniques that should take years in mere seconds. Should there be a situation where," Obito slowly held her face, "An Uchiha happens to die beside you, if you don't take their eyes, someone else will. An enemy, perhaps. You wouldn't want that falling into the wrong hands, do you?"

Sakura doubted that was possible, but she didn't doubt ghosts were crazy, so she nodded. "Yes. I read in a textbook that Hunter Nin are supposed to dispose of the missing-nin's body completely in order to keep kekkei genkai off enemy hands. I suppose it would save them the trouble and risk, if I were to do it myself," Sakura tapped her chin.

He was quiet for a moment, looking thoughtful...Then, slowly, he reiterated,

"Sakura-chan is a good girl."

* * *

><p>花<p> 


	21. Chapter 21

黑

* * *

><p>Sakura had fallen into depression. She was missing weeks of school.<p>

But that was okay, Sakura wasn't alone. She had a ghost to keep her company. And, it wasn't like she wasn't getting her education.

"Sakura-chan, let's go this way," Obito was walking beside Sakura through one of Konoha's slums. It was nearby where Naruto lived, just deeper into the poorer areas.

She didn't like the leering looks she was getting, and she didn't think Obito had any combat abilities since he had long died. She reached over and poked Obito, her hand phrasing through his body like he was only an illusion. Sakura drew her hand back, certain now more than ever he was a ghost, and not that he had a intangibility technique.

She didn't know that Obito was in reality, a physical Tobi casting a genjutsu over himself to appear like his younger self. They were in public but no one in the slums would have recognized a person who died a decade ago.

"Over here, through this manhole," Obito sunk under the round lid in the middle of an empty street, and Sakura pushed some chakra to her fingers to pull the metal lid aside, exposing a ladder that must have went a thousand feet underground. She tentatively stepped onto the ladder and slowly moved her hands and feet to descend, but not before pulling the lid shut.

There was no light source, and Sakura was in the absolute dark, clinging to a ladder hundreds of feet above ground. She shuddered, wondering if there were rats waiting down to consume her, or something disgusting like sewer water full of poop and trash.

"O-Obito-kun," Sakura squeaked, slowly descending.

"Don't worry, I'll, uh, catch you if you fall, I mean, if I can, I really can't since I'm a ghost," Obito amended. That did nothing to calm her nerves.

She felt her anger well up, Obito was reminding her of Naruto! She huffed, and descended faster.

"Actually, Sakura, you should learn to land on your feet with chakra. I can't wait here all day and you're too scared to take one step at a time without a minute break each step." Obito put on his lecturing voice, "First, you move the right amount of chakra to your feet, just before you land, and upon touching the gorund, you should expel the same amount of chakra correlating to your body weight and the landing friction. It takes practice to get it right, if you're not a physics nerd."

"I am a physics nerd,"

"Still, hands-on approach."

"Obito, I am not dropping myself off this ladder when I can't see the floor. How do you expect me to land properly?"

"Right," Obito grinned sheepishly,

"Wait, why are you so close to me? Ghosts can float?"

"Err, sorta, I'm standing on the side wall with ghost-chakra. You shouldn't try it, it's slippery and flat and wet and hard to control. Just take the ladder."

Ten minutes past and when Sakura descended the last step, she was shocked to feel the flat floor. "Wow! I actually made it!" She glanced up, "I just hope I'll be able to find my way back. It's so dark and the ceiling looks the same everywhere."

"Follow me!" Obito put a slight glow over himself and walked down the hall of the sewer system. He looked almost divine.

Sakura followed.

"So you see, this is an abandoned laboratory of a guy named Orochimaru! It's such a waste that no one's using it, I bet Sarutobi's sentimentality had a hand in that. And, he never returned to use it after he got chased out of the village. It's yours now."

"W-What? I can't just take-"

"Here's the map."

She took it and gasped at the sight of a maze outline.

"There are tons of seals that make places not look connected to others, or accessible, but I'm sure I can figure it out for you. Who knows, maybe you might even learn one or two things about fuuinjutsu."

"Okay," Sakura replied, entering a room full of stacks of research notes.

"This is the medical ninjutsu invention room...I bet some of Tsunade's stolen stuff are here." Obito said, gesturing grandiosely to the shelves. "I expect you to spend the rest of your nights studying here rather than at the Academy. Also, learn to make a chemical that preserves eyeballs, and some more..." Obito smirked, having a medic nin to transplant Nagato's Rinnegan into his eye socket was an appealing notion. He was reminded of Rin, removing and transplanting his Sharingan into Kakashi. "Transplantation techniques."

Sakura looked utterly repulsed, but after a few carefully chosen words with just the right amount of guilt placed on her, Sakura relented.

Obito smiled. _She's easier to control than Rin, at least. _

"Now get to work. I expect you here every night, we don't have much time." He hushed her before she could ask 'much time for what?' and told her to use the secret routes he pointed out in the map.

"No matter what, if you get discovered, you'll be sent to Torture and Interrogation. You don't want that, do ya, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura shook her head profusely, sweat beading down her forehead and neck. She didn't sign up for this...

"Good girl. Finish that shelf by the end of this week, and proceed to the next." He paused, "I have to return to 'heaven' now...I can't spend much time away from the death realm, or too far away from the KIA Stone, but I'm getting better at this." He smirked. "You're a bookworm, aren't you? This should be easy. Also, there's a light switch beside the door. Enjoooy~" Obito, spiraled out of existence.

Sakura watched, transfixed, before sighing, walking over to the light switch, and turning it on. She shuddered at the stacks of yellow, dirty paper and the trash on the floor. No doubt there were germs and bugs and dust and rats.

She walked over to the bookshelf, grabbed a scroll, took a seat on a clean spot on the floor, and began to read, her fingers shivering at the soggy parts of the scroll.

Sakura desperately wanted to wash her hands. But that compulsion gradually reduced, as she gained more insight on medical techniques than the textbooks ever provided her. Orochimaru, or Tsunade, or whoever did all this reseach, was a true genius.

She summoned a Koneko and asked him to borrow some reference books at the Konoha Public Library. There were still some words she didn't understand, and Obito wasn't here to define them.

* * *

><p>黑<p>

* * *

><p>Itachi looked around, his hand gripping Sasuke's softly. He'd expected Sakura to be here, but she wasn't present at Hana's funeral. The other elders apparently thought the same thing, judging by their expressions of disbelief and scanning eyes.<p>

"Have you seen Sakura?" The old woman who threw rice buns at Sasuke whenever he was on the way to school asked.

"No," Sasuke said, clenching his fists. He looked at his brother, seeing a worried expression on Itachi's face, which was rare enough already, and Sasuke decided he quite hated Sakura. That fangirl doesn't deserve all this attention, there was nothing special about her, she only did everything to impress Sasuke.

_This is unexpected_, Itachi thought._ Perhaps she doesn't have as much compassion as she seemed, or she doesn't care about others once they're dead. _

He didn't know how wrong he was.

* * *

><p>黑<p> 


	22. Chapter 22

黑

* * *

><p>Naruto was sad. Worried, even. But mostly just sad.<p>

Over the last few weeks, he'd seen a side of Sakura that he'd never known existed! The prankster side, she was really creative and she secretly loved pranks like his. They used to pull a prank everyday, run, and laugh it off like criminal buddies. Naruto always wanted a friend, and he got someone even better, a_ best friend_. And with _Sakura-chan_ of all people. It was his crush, and Naruto was in heaven.

Then...

Then..Sakura started acting like Shikamaru. It had happened slowly.

First, there was a week Sakura had vanished from existence. Naruto overheard some villagers talk about an old person from the Uchiha clan dying of old age, and he frowned. Sakura really liked old people, didn't she? She must have found out and been sad. That's why she cuts class, right? Naruto cuts class too when he's sad or bullied too hard and wants alone time, is that the same for Sakura-chan? Naruto knew when he wanted alone time, he really didn't want alone time, he just didn't have a friend. So, he tried to look for Sakura, certain she'd need someone's shoulder to cry on.

But, Naruto couldn't find Sakura. She wasn't at home, (and that was strange because her parents acted like everything was normal,) she wasn't at the Uchihas, she wasn't anywhere. Naruto never gave up searching, yet he never found her.

Then, Sakura returned.

She was a mess. Like, a monster had snatched her up, trapped her into the underworld, and transformed her before setting her free.

Naruto shook his head and looked on the positive side. Sakura-chan was back!

He bolted over and hugged her, not a thought about Sakura bopping him in the head and calling him an idiot for hugging her. In fact, he hoped Sakura would do that, it would prove that she's the same old Sakura!

Sakura didn't. She just stood there like a puppet, letting Naruto hug her.

Naruto pulled back to look at her face, and noticed the hollow look in her eyes, which were no longer the bright emerald green, but a mossy, murkier green, and the dark eyebags under them.

She looked like she hadn't slept in ages.

"Ah, Naruto?" Sakura smiled, rubbing the back of her head.

Naruto wondered if she picked this habit from himself or someone else. She didn't have it before she ditched him at their last prank. Nah, it was from Naruto, no one in Konoha has that mannerism so Naruto felt his chest swell with pride, and he grinned. "Yup! Glad you're back, Sakura-chan!"

That was when Iruka-sensei entered the classroom with a clipboard, pen automatically going to mark Sakura absent, but seeing the flash of pink, he withdrew his hand. "Sakura?"

She looked at him, and Iruka's lips parted into an 'o'

Mizuki-sensei followed behind, and leaned over to whisper something into Iruka's ear. He nodded, mumbling something about mourning and depression. They had a secret conversation, or an argument of hushed, yet loud whispers. It was a rare day, because it ended with Mizuki-sensei smirking and Iruka-sensei frowning. This meant Mizuki won it. Usually when a whispered argument ends with both teachers frowning, it meant Iruka-sensei won. This tended to be everyday, but today was not such a day.

Mizuki-sensei walked over to them, and placed a hand on Sakura's shoulder. "Welcome back, Sakura-chan. You look tired. You can relax for today's lesson," his eyes curled mirthfully. "You can relax for all the lessons." _Maybe then, you'll fail the graduation exam and steal the Scroll of Seals for me. Iruka always has an eye on Naruto, but no one watches over you. Perfect.  
><em>

Sakura nodded. "Thanks, Mizuki-sensei. I needed it." She made her way over to the abandoned seat, plopped down, set her head on the desk, and fell right asleep, not once considering how many weeks Naruto must have spent sitting by himself.

Now, there were two sleepers in class. A boy sleeping for the hell of it, and a girl sleeping because she needed it.

Naruto sat beside the occupied seat, glad his friend was back, but also feeling that she wasn't back. She was just a body.

Weeks flew by, and Sakura was always asleep in class. Naruto was reverting back to his old self, attention-seeking to the extremes and overly-considerate towards Sakura, too shy to ask her out anymore.

Mizuki-sensei smiled, content that Sakura's grades were decreasing as she napped through exams too. At this rate, she was bound to fail. He didn't realize Sakura spent 12 hours consistently studying medical-ninjutsu each night. Such a nocturnal schedule couldn't be good for a young developing body.

But, Obito had said that once Sakura became a genin, she wouldn't have enough time to properly study, plus her brain would have a harder time absorbing information as she aged older. Adding in a bit of persuasion involving the elders' wish for her to become Hokage and revive them, and that if she can't do something as easy and necessary as studying, then she can't reach higher goals, Sakura relented and did what Obito wanted.

_All according to plan._

* * *

><p>黑<p> 


	23. Chapter 23

眼睛

* * *

><p>84 hours of study per week.<p>

Weeks of this.

Sakura couldn't stand it.

"Please, Obito, I'm tired, I want to sleep, and I hate science and medical ninjutsu!" Sakura finally snapped. "I used to get sick to my stomach at reading Orochimaru's experiments but now I can't feel even that! I'm numb, Obito!"

"Tsk, tsk," Obito shook his head just slow enough to send her jolts of guilt. "Sa-ku-ra, you want to save them, don't you?"

"..."

"They're counting on you."

Sakura looked at him desperately, frowning.

"You asked me to train you, didn't you?" She hadn't, he offered her; nonetheless, Sakura nodded.

Obito adjusted his goggles, "You've got the lowest taijutsu scores in your class," Obito didn't bother to state the reason was Sakura's lack of sleep, "So your only strong point is your mentality. Your Inner is proof of that. Which is why, you should keep stuffing knowledge inside your little head until you burn out. This. Is. _Training_."

Sakura shivered, looking down. "Okay," she whispered.

Obito had an idea. "We don't have much time, but I agree that your brain needs its rest," he held up his finger, "Why don't you try switching places with your Inner, Sakura?"

"Y-You mean so I can go to sleep and have Inner study for me?"

At Obito's nod, Sakura regained her confidence, "This means I never have to sleep, right? Because me and my Inner take turns resting."

Obito's eyes raised. "Perhaps mentally, it's true. But you must get physical sleep for your body, or you'll get eyestrain, and your nervous system would be constantly turned on. No matter how strong your mind is, your body won't keep up, Ri- -Sakura."

Sakura rubbed her drooping eyes, yawning. "I'll switch places with Inner me, thanks Obito." She opened her eyes and they were brighter and more assertive than before. "**Cha! I'll finish this whole shelf by tonight!**"

Obito's jaw dropped. "Wow."

* * *

><p>眼睛<p>

* * *

><p>The next day, Sakura went to school and slept through the entire lesson.<p>

When class was dismissed, she missed the pleading look on Naruto's face as she walked off.

* * *

><p>眼睛<p>

* * *

><p>"Sakura-chan, I think today you should take a break," Obito didn't look happy.<p>

"What? Why?" Sakura panicked. "Is it because I'm so useless?"

Obito's gaze softened. "That has nothing to do with it. I want you to go play with your friend and meet with me in a few hours."

"Oh! I should..go help Hana-I mean, the others."

"No, Sakura, not today." Obito placed his hands on her shoulders, "You are going home, and getting your sleep. I will wake you up when it's time for our..date."

Sakura spluttered indignantly, but Obito just grinned sheepishly.

When she turned to leave, his grin turned evil. Discovering the aftermath of the Uchiha Massacre would do her good.

Then he frowned. Ever since he began "training" Sakura, she hadn't helped out the elders for weeks. It was tonight, and Obito considered delaying the massacre for 1 more day, just to let her spend their final moments together before their deaths. He'd have to come up with a excuse to convince Itachi. It wasn't a difficult feat, Itachi was incapable of killing everyone by himself. _But I obviously can't tell the weasel the truth, unless I want him to use my cherry blossom as a bargaining chip against me._

Then Obito smacked himself. _What am I thinking?! It makes no difference now, she'll have all the time she wants with the old geezers once my Tsuki no Me Project is complete! An eternity with them is worth more than 1 day right now! Yeah, that's right! _Obito nodded to himself. _Enjoying their unlimited time together in a peaceful world later on is better than a couple hours right now right before their deaths! _

Then Obito cleared his throat. _The hell am I trying to convince myself for? I'm sounding immature. Acting as my old self is rubbing off on my real self, clouding my judgment. I'll have order a few more executions of kekkei genkai clans to put myself back into the right mental state. Who knows, if they're strong, I might consider getting them recruited for Akatsuki. _

With that, Obito chuckled darkly, dimension-whirling himself back into the Mizukage office.

* * *

><p>眼睛<p>

* * *

><p>"I'm home, mom, dad!" Sakura called out as she entered the living room.<p>

Her parents came downstairs and hugged her before heading off for work or making dinner. Sakura blinked, she hadn't been home for a while, so why were they acting so..normal? Sakura was too tired to think about it, and instead went upstairs, plopping onto the bed and falling asleep instantly. She didn't know Obito used_ genjutsu_ to make them think Sakura came home everyday.

* * *

><p>眼睛<p>

* * *

><p>"Wake up, Saku<em>rin<em>."

She could have sworn she felt a grip shaking her shoulders, but when her eyes opened, Obito was standing on her bed. _Ghosts don't touch_.

"Obito-kun," she smiled, feeling a bit better. A bit.

"Sakura, instead of returning to Oro's underground hideout, I was planning to take you to my favorite places today as your day off, but the situation's changed."

Sakura blinked. _What situation?_

"Follow me," Obito strode off, leading her into a forest and going underground a large mole tunnel. Once again, Obito's body glowed as a light source.

Sakura dutifully ignored the mud that dripped from the ceiling and the bugs that scurried around her feet. Once they reached surface, Sakura found she was inside the back entrance of the Uchiha compound. "Uh, why didn't we just enter through the front entrance?"

"Because it's dangerous, as you can see," Obito grandiosely gestured to all the dead corpses scattered on the streets and surely there were more inside. "Itachi killed everyone."

"WHAT?!"

"Oh yeah, go steal some eyesballs before someone else gets to them," _Like Danzo, for example_.

Sakura would have been repulsed at his apathetic order, but then she remembered.

* * *

><p><strong>Flashback<strong>:_ "Sakura, I'm not saying you should take Hana's body for research," he shuddered, "That would be wrong. The others have set up a funeral and everything, but you should take this scenario as preparation...What if an Uchiha dies? I want you to take their eyes. The Sharingan has the power to learn techniques that should take years in mere seconds. Should there be a situation where," Obito slowly held her face, "An Uchiha happens to die beside you, if you don't take their eyes, someone else will. An enemy, perhaps. You wouldn't want that falling into the wrong hands, do you?"_

* * *

><p>"I don't get it!" Sakura stomped her foot. "All the old people are dead now?!"<p>

"Obviously! Now hurry up or do you want to get accused of murder?" Obito scolded.

Sakura froze, before her Inner smacked her back to her senses. She ran to the first body.

"I waant you to take my Sharingan before the enemy gets them," a translucent mirage of an Uchiha elder stood above the body, urging her.

Obito stood beside her. "Ah, I forgot to tell you, but when an Uchiha dies, their spirit sticks around for a little bit. It happened to me. You should honor their wishes, Sakura-chan."

Sakura stared, her jaw dropping. Then she bit her lip, nervous.

Sakura shut her eyes, and pulled out a storage scroll, summoned a jar with a yellowish liquid. "Do it," the Uchiha's illusion hissed, pointing towards the lifeless body on the floor.

She shuddered, falling to her knees. She pushed yin chakra to her hand to create a scalpel, and scooped out the first eye, and held it with as much disgusted care as possible. She unscrewed the lid of the jar and plopped the optic sphere inside. It floated a bit before sinking.

"Sakura, you have a hundred Sharingan left to collect. Kill your emotions, you can cry about it later." Obito looked thoughtful. "Hana, Sawa, Shiku, Shin, all of them would be so proud, don't you want that?"

That resolved her, and she worked through the night. The few times she hesitated and absolutely refused, specifically when she stumbled across an elder she was overly familiar with, Obito snapped his finger and the corpse's ghost showed up, "persuading" her to take their eyes, or even threatening to kill her if she refused.

By the time she'd stuffed ten jars full of eyeballs and sealed them back into their proper scrolls, she entered the last room Obito led her to. It was the same room she'd woken up in that one time after Itachi discovered her.

She walked over to Mikoto and Fugaku, her emotions bottled up in the verge of breaking, and removed their eyes. Then, she looked up, saw Sasuke, and gasped.

_How could I have forgotten?! _Sakura leaped over to him and pulled him up, breathing an absolute sigh of relief upon seeing he was still alive, just drooling and caught in a genjutsu.

Before Obito could stop her, Sakura raised her hands into the ram seal. "Dispel!"

It didn't dispel.

**Leave him! We have to get going! They're coming, run! **Inner loudly warned.

Sakura stuffed the scrolls in her pockets and ran the hell out of there, no one saw anything.

* * *

><p>眼睛<p>

* * *

><p>Danzo didn't get any eyes for his arm that night.<p>

* * *

><p>眼睛<p>

* * *

><p>...<p>

"It's okay, Sakura, you can cry now," Obito pulled up his goggles and sobbed. It felt good, he'd been a dull husk ever since he became Tobi, but when he was with Sakura, he could be his old self, even if he was merely acting..._Is it completely an act?_

_Not just to Sakura, I can be Obito again to everyone, no strings attached. I just have to endure until the Plan's final stage. Right now, I'm just tasting a little bit of it. It's a strong, bitter taste, but it's a reminder of what I'm fighting for. _

Sakura was shivering with her knees pulled to her chest. She was shakily reciting some stupid rule about "shinobi not being allowed to show their emotions" as she willed her tears to stay inside her eyes. Obito ignored her, choosing instead to sit himself down beside her.

Then, Obito started wailing loudly.

Sakura looked at him in shock, before understanding dawned. _How could I have been so **selfish**? This is his clan, his family, not mine! He must have been it worse than I did! It must have hurt him, suddenly checking up on the people he grew up with- only to see I-Itachi brutally slaughtering him. I hope he didn't see- Who am I kidding, he watched them die right before his eyes, how else could he have known the culprit? And been unable to stop the murderer since he's only a ghost- _

Sakura clenched her fists, firming her resolve. This isn't about herself, it's about him. She shook her head fast, flinging off her tears.

Completely forgetting about his intangibility, she scooted over and crawled into his lap to pull him into a hug, her chin pressed to his shoulder, and sobbed, her eyes closed, whispering the same promises her mother always made when Sakura cried. "E-Everything will be o-okay, O-Obito-kun." **_No matter what, I can't let myself be traumatized now, for Obito-kun's sake!_**

She didn't notice anything amiss about his body feeling larger, almost the same size as papa's, or that his crying voice sounded much deeper than before, raspy even, or that she was _touching_ him, a ghost!

She would later dismiss all this as just her impression.

She barely heard his whisper, and for once, she didn't mind pretending to be someone else.

_"Thank you, Rin."_

_..._

It should have been Sasuke in her arms.

* * *

><p>眼睛<p> 


	24. Chapter 24

迷路

* * *

><p>"Pst, did you hear? The Uchiha clan was massacred," a boy whispered to his friend.<p>

"Look, that's the last Uchiha," another boy pointed out.

Sasuke bristled. He got enough of the attention and pity from the villagers, and now he has to deal with the gawking in class too. He was released from the hospital, and given leisure by the Academy teachers. Everyone tried to approach him, comfort him, befriend him. The weaklings, they were just going to slow him down from killing_ that man_.

Naruto ran into the classroom, shouting about Hokages for all the world to hear.

He looked at Sasuke and shut up.

Sasuke glared right back, and did he just see a spark of happiness, empathy in Naruto's cerulean eyes?

He frowned, lacing his hands in front of his mouth to cover his expression, and thought.

_Naruto is an orphan too._ His glare sharpened. Naruto was _always_ alone, what would he know?

_Don't try to suck up to me just because we both have no parents, you've never experienced their love to feel the same loss as I did. Oh, now you're coming over because you think we're equals and should be **friends**? _

Sasuke felt a fist collide against his jaw, knocking him off his seat and hitting his back against the stone floor.

"OI YOU TEME! DON'T GLARE AT ME!"

Sasuke's fists curled and he leaped back to his feet, drawing his fist back and punching Naruto to the ground. His lips twitched automatically, "Dobe."

Naruto's eyes widened, then he jumped back onto his feet. "DON'T CALL ME DOBE!"

"Hn. Usuratonkachi."

"Grrrr!"

Sasuke couldn't hold back his smirk. He didn't want to admit it, but he'd have preferred Naruto's hostility over everyone else's sympathy.

"Grr you teme! Stop smirking like th-"

"NARUTO! GET BACK TO YOUR SEAT!" It was Iruka.

Sasuke hn'd.

"Yes, Iruka-sensei, that's what I've been trying to get him to do," Sakura, once again, tried to get on sensei's good side. _Teacher's pet._ Sasuke snorted disdainfully.

"Ow ow ow ow!" Naruto yelped in pain as Sakura grabbed the end of his ear and pulled him back to his seat.

Sasuke could have sworn Naruto sounded happy from Sakura's brutality. That masochist Naruto.

What he didn't notice was that Sakura had been ignoring Naruto over the past months and now she was starting to turn back into her former, bossy self.

Coincidentally right after his clan's death.

* * *

><p>迷路<p>

* * *

><p><em>Two days ago...<em>

Obito's hand reached behind him and lifted a jar of Sharingan, sending it to his alter dimension. Then, he spared a glance at Sakura, and suddenly felt very awkward. "Aha-ha, Sakura-chan, you don't have to work so hard," Obito commented at Sakura trying to dissect a Sharingan.

He was a little sickened, it felt like Sakura was dissecting _his_ eye. _Man, I must have corrupted this girl a bit too much..But that's her own fault, she was reminding me too much of my old self it was pissing me off_.

"I need to do this, Obito-kun," was Sakura's reply. She didn't look up from her experiment.

Obito crossed his arms. "Hmph!" Inwardly, he grinned. There was no doubt in the future he would need a scientist for the Tsuki no Me plan, someone who could restore fallen comrades or power up their abilities. Perhaps even invent new jutsu that could end the war in one blow. Yes, there was going to be a war. Obito knew people would oppose the Moon's Eye Plan, those fools. They're the filthy rich ones who exploit, eat the poor, kill babies, and slaughter for dirty money. The few ones who weren't, had simply lived happy lives, or were masochists, or made new friends to fill the void. Obito shook his head. No one could fill Rin's void.

"I can't figure out the Sharingan's trick. Judging from the feel of my chakra diagnosis, the pattern looks like a summoning seal but in a way it's not because it's just a differently shaped eye! I think I might comprehend it if I implant it in-" Sakura shuddered. "Nevermind!"

Obito chuckled. "Did you really think I was going to force you into switching your lovely green eyes for my family's scary demon ones?"

Sakura kept quiet.

Obito clicked his tongue, "Oh c'mon! I'm not_ that_ evil!"

"You'd be surprised," Sakura said, pulling out a mirror and frowning at her haggard appearance.

Obito blinked. "Right. As I said earlier, you should take a break. You brought this onto yourself." Obito frowned thoughtfully. "By the way, I..uh...don't think I can..." He looked bashful. "I can't spend time with you anymore afterwards."

"WHAT?!" Sakura dropped everything she was holding and faced Obito. "Why?!"

_Because Itachi agreed to join Akatsuki if I stay away from Sasuke and Konoha? "_I have dead-people stuff to do, you know, trying to get into heaven and all. Besides, once you get a jounin-sensei," _I'll get discovered in two seconds_. "He will be suspicious of your sanity, since you're the only one who can see me."

Sakura looked about to cry.

Obito's heart wrenched. "I know how it feels, losing the people you love. But tell you what," Obito weight the pros and cons of letting her in on his secret, and figured it wouldn't hurt to drop a hint or two. It might help his cause in the long run. "About this Heaven place I'm working on, I'm trying to bring that peace to Earth. So that no one ever dies again, and the ones who did will come back to life. There will be no more evil...But a world of just victors, peace and love...everyone will become one big happy family." He chuckled at her awestruck eyes, "Trust me, it's real, and completely possible."

Sakura started brushing her fingers through her hair, "I believe in you, Obito-kun..."

_But to enjoy it, you'll have to form bonds_. "Sakura-chan, popquiz! If the Hokage orders you to assassinate your friend, would you do it?"

"No!" Sakura blurted out. _What the heck?_ "Of course not! Hokage-sama would never do that."

"The Hokage here won't do that, but other villages would encourage you to, so I want to bring peace to the world," Obito chuckled her worshiper-fangirl-look, "But keep your answer in mind, Sakura."

He smiled nostalgically. "Those that break the rules and regulations are scum. But those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum." He looked at her with a new sense of appreciation. "Heh. Even now, I'm not giving up on Rin and Kakashi."

**Obito-kun is so damn cool!** "I wish you were alive," Sakura said.

"In the end, I'll come back to life," Obito promised. "Then you can introduce me to _your_ friends." He sniffled, rubbing his forearm to his goggles. "It's the dust in my eye."

Sakura's lip quivered. She pulled on her goggles to hide her tears too. "I'll miss you too."

His gaze hardened. "_Don't_ overwork yourself anymore, Sakura-chan. There's no need to worry about the revival of the Uchiha clan...I have it _all_ under control. Someday, I will return to retrieve you; it's a promise," he held out his hand, extending his index and middle finger.

Sakura snapped out of her trance. _It's the Seal of Reconciliation. Iruka-sensei makes everyone do it after a spar._ She copied his motion and held her hand to his.

She didn't physically feel it, but she saw it, their fingers hooking, like binding a promise.

Then, Obito grinned goofily, "Have a normal life! Kids like you should have fun." He sheepishly rubbed behind his head as his image slowly faded out."Um, until we meet again then!"

She didn't see him again for another nine years.

* * *

><p>迷路<p> 


	25. Chapter 25

恨

* * *

><p>Sakura was still his fangirl, Sasuke noted.<p>

But her personality flipped a complete 180.

No longer was she a part of the crowd of Sasuke fangirls, rivaling with Ino to be the sorority's leader.

Now, Ino was the lead fangirl and Sakura shrunk back into her shell, stuttering and refusing to look Sasuke in the eye.

In a way, she was like Hinata towards Naruto.

Even Ino noticed, and Ino remembered a time when she regretted bringing Sakura out of her shell, but now she was starting to have second thoughts. Then Ino decided it won't last long anyway since it's _Sakura_, and so to milk it for all its worth, she pursued Sasuke's affections harder.

The bell rang, and it was time for recess and lunch.

Sasuke stood up, sliding his hands into his pockets and walked off to train but-

"A-Ano," Sakura had her hands behind her back. Her eyes were downcast and her pink locks hiding most of her facial expression.

Sasuke grunted, annoyed. "What is it now? Let's get this over with."

Sakura held out her boxed lunch, rice and vegetables, tomatoes and boiled fish. "Here! You're going to train, right? You need the nutrition to g-grow strong," Inner Sakura shouted:** Don't be nervous, you! You're making progress! **

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Then, he snorted. At least one fangirl knew how to be useful. He pulled the bento box with his hand, holding it under his arm. He turned to leave, but he noticed Sakura doing the same to the opposite direction.

The words came out before he could think to regret it, "Aren't you going to follow me?" _Or ask to each lunch with me?_

Sakura froze midstep. "I-..."

"You've been doing this a lot lately. If it's not lunch, you hand me money, shuriken, weapons, things I've forgotten. Just last week you changed the name on your written assignment to 'Sasuke Uchiha' when I missed it. I received a perfect grade, and you scored a 0," By now he was facing Sakura, a deadly glare plastered on his usually stoic face, "but it's not my attention you want. I've offered you multiple opportunities to get my company, you've taken none." _Which means your actions aren't motivated by that annoying crush of yours_. By now he was walking back, stepping closer to her. Their feet were mere inches apart, and she could smell his breath. "You have nothing to gain if you keep avoiding me, yet giving everything up." His curiosity only increased with his words. "You aren't stupid. What are you thinking, Sa-ku-ra?"

Sakura gasped. He sounded like...

_"Don't you want to save them, Sa-ku-ra?"_

_Obito pretended to hug her and she moved to whop his head, only to have her hand phrase through. _

_"You're a smart girl, Sakura, surely you know that."_

_Obito was crying for the death of his family, and Sakura moved to hug him, even if it was only pretend.  
><em>

"I-..." Sakura stammered.

Sasuke's hand snatched her chin, forcing her to look directly into his eyes. Then, he saw something he didn't like, the same thing he saw in every adult of the village.

_Pity._

_.._

.."So that's how it is...You act this way because of my _heritage," _Sasuke mused. He slammed her to a wall, his forearm pressing against her neck, emitting a pained yelp. She struggled, but he pinned her arms above her head with his free hand. "Let's face it, you're_ worse_ than the fangirls, who only look to me for my appearance." _Even Naruto is above them._ He tightened his grip to watch her wretch in pain. Sasuke snorted, disdained, and released her; she dropped to the floor. "At least they see me for a part of _who_ I am, not _what_ I am." He turned around, sparing a hateful glare over his shoulder. "Out of everyone in this world, you're the _second worst human being possible_."_ Second to that man. And unlike the adults, you were in my classes and knew me before that man killed my family._

His footsteps gradually receded, leaving her gasping for breath. His mouth twisted in a frown as his fists clenched. _You're the type of person I hate the most, Sakura Haruno._

* * *

><p>恨<p> 


	26. Chapter 26

承认

* * *

><p>Naruto moved his hand to his forehead to block out the sunlight as he ogled around the courtyard, looking for his favorite flash of pink. He saw everything<em> but<em> that. _Sakura-chan must still be in the classroom. She's probably sleeping agai- _Naruto jumped._ Sakura-chan's not like that anymore! She's back to normal! _So Naruto dashed back indoors.

As he was running inside, Sasuke was walking smoothly past Naruto outside.

Within that millisecond they were beside each other, Sasuke's smirk widened as his hand reached out and grabbed Naruto by the back of his atrocious jumpsuit and using the momentum, swung him to the floor.

Naruto landed on his butt and gasped up at Sasuke. Then, he processed exactly what happened and jumped to his feet, pointing at his bastard rival. "Teme!"

Sasuke smirked, "dobe."

With that, they got into a physical fight that had them wrestling around in the floor. Sasuke was sustaining punches to his face, neck, torso, arms, and all over his body while Naruto was getting about equal the amount of damage, which was rare, as Sasuke was the Number 1 Rookie and Naruto the Dead Last. One would think Sasuke was holding back, purposely taking the hits.

..One would be right.

He was,

_Because of Sakura_.

She was the last straw of the ignorant villagers, who treated him with false, undeserved respect just because he was the last Uchiha. Sasuke hated it. He hated Sakura, and he hated everyone else. But most of all, he hated the man who was the cause of it all.

...

Naruto was different.

Naruto saw through him, saw past his Uchiha status. Sasuke was amused, he should have expected it, the dobe was too dumb to care about any of that. Naruto acted upon his true emotions, aggression towards _Sasuke_ himself, not some 'last Uchiha.'

He took another punch to his jaw while thrusting his knee into his opponent's gut.

Sasuke would never admit it, but he acknowledged Naruto's existence more than ever that day.

* * *

><p>承认<p>

* * *

><p>Back inside the classroom, alone, Sakura curled her knees close and hugged them.<p>

_What have I done?_

She looked down. **You took every one of the Uchiha's eyes.**

"I know that!" Sakura snapped at her Inner.

**Then you felt ashamed of what you did, tried to repent by being nice to Sasuke.  
><strong>

"No, he deserved it! His family is dead, I'd do the same for Naruto!"

**Then why haven't you...done the same for Naruto? **

_..._

**Exactly. You think, since you took so much from Sasuke's clan, you should return what you can. That's why you let him push you around just before, even though you can hold your own. But you know what, Sasuke hates that. **

"As it seems," Sakura allowed mournfully.

**Sasuke isn't his clan. Sasuke isn't the old geezers you loved. Sasuke isn't Obito.**

"I know that!" Sakura snapped.

**Then why have you not once looked him in the eye until he forced you to? Because his eyes...**

_Are the same color as Obito-kun's eyes. _Sakura finished her Inner's thought.

Sakura gasped, her hand flying over her mouth. "How could I have- I'm such a hypocrite!" Sakura realized. She was a hypocrite in many ways, from her past annoyance at Naruto's pestering when she did exactly the same to Sasuke, and now...She could almost laugh. "Just last month I hated how I reminded everyone of someone else."

_To the elders, I'm Obito. To Obito, I'm Rin._ "I wanted it all to stop, for them to see me as just Sakura!" She threw her arms up. "It did stop." _Because now they're gone._

**That's right, Forehead. You're treating Sasuke the same way they treated you. Your kindness isn't for Sasuke, it's for Obito and the elders..! I'll say you deserved to get beat up and spat on. **

"He's right, I'm the worst person ever," Sakura admitted. She sat there sulking for a bit more before shaking her head and trying to wipe off the moisture in her fogged glasses.. She picked herself up. "That's it, from now on, I won't try to pretend that Sasuke is Obito-kun anymore."

**No "-kun?" **

"Because he's not Obito-kun," she explained, completely forgetting the fact that she added the honorific to Sasuke's name long before she met Obito.

**Yes, start small. So you're going to stop thinking of Uchihas every time you so much as look at him, and start treating him normally? **

"Yes, I'll treat him like Naruto. I don't let Naruto push me around, so why should I let Sasuke? Just because he's an Uchiha? That's unfair to Sasuke, and Obito-kun would be ashamed that I'm doing exactly what I hate being done to me."

Inner smirked, finally allowing herself release. **SHANNARO! that's the me that I know! So, everything's okay now? Since you won't be busying yourself with your stupid suck-up-to-Sasuke repentance anymore and Obito-kun's not here to force you to study ninjutsu...**

Sakura smirked back cockily. "Deface the Hokage Monument?"

**Forehead, it's been done. Think of another prank.**

"I'll only pull one if Naruto's in it." _Don't wanna get into trouble by myself._

**Then find him. Naruto's way better at coming up with pranks than you could ever dream to be.**

Sakura's eye twitched, _Oi, I'm still smarter than him. _She huffed at her subconscious attitude, and walked out the classroom, heading out for recess. No doubt Naruto was still outdoors looking for her.

As she walked down the hall, she did a double take long before reaching the exit. The sight that greeted her was of the two boys she was just thinking about wrestling on the floor for each other's lives.

Naturally, a vein burst in her forehead as she clenched her fists and made her way over to them. "NARUUUTO! Fighting is against the rules!" Raising her fists, she thumped _both_ Naruto and Sasuke's heads away from each other. As they laid splattered on the floor rubbing their heads, too out-of-it to process what just happened, Sasuke jeered at her.

"You too, Sasuke!" She stuck out her tongue at him for extra measure.

Sasuke felt his anger flare, but it was a different type of anger, unlike the one he felt for her just before. Astonished, his anger was overtaken by surprise as he just stared at her with widened eyes of disbelief.

Naruto too, but he recovered first as a grin broke out. "Finally, After all these years! Sakura-chan sees Sasuke-teme for who he is! A dumbass bastard!"

Sakura grinned back evilly, cracking her knuckles. "Oh he's dumb alright, for breaking the rules too, but not as stupid as you are for name-calling!"

Sasuke's wide eyes only widened as he watched Sakura tackle Naruto and start wrestling with him, albeit less intensely. _Heh, what a hypocrite. She complains about us fighting yet instantly starts fighting Naruto?_ Then he frowned._ Did she just call me dumb? And hit me?_ Sasuke rubbed the bruise forming on his head,

For something Sasuke himself did.

Against his will, the corner of Sasuke's lip twitched into a mockery of a smile. It was a rush of pride and achievement. His father had always saw him as Itachi's runner-up. The villagers, his teachers, classmates, they saw him as the Last Uchiha. The fangirls saw only his talent, appearance, and status.

Naruto was the only one he would allow himself to get close to. Even if Naruto only saw him as a rival, Sasuke would refuse anyone else, Mangekyou Sharingan be damned, because the only type of person his pride would allow as a _friend_ was someone who judged him by his own actions, and Naruto was one such person, the only one in fact, until...

Sasuke's eyes slid upon the dress of red clashing against the dobe's orange.

He wanted more, and they were the only ones who had it, so he'd taunt them more. "Hn. Such losers."

"What did you just say?!" They chanted simultaneously.

Sasuke's smirk couldn't widen more without splitting his face, and it became a three-way spar.

By by the time recess was over, that part of the school building was utterly demolished, and three kids were thrown before the bemused Hokage.

* * *

><p>承认<p> 


	27. Chapter 27

花

* * *

><p>"But Old Man! Sasuke-teme attacked me first!"<p>

Sarutobi sighed. "According to Iruka-sensei, you always initiate the violence."

"They were both in on it," Sakura ratted out,

"Sakura, you were in on it too," the Hokage reprimanded and Sakura blushed in shame.

Sasuke grunted, opting to stay silent.

The Hokage shoved aside his paperwork and set his elbows upon the desk, contemplating the three kids before him. Then, he took a deep breath and released as much killing intent aura as possible, scaring the hell out of them. Sakura and Naruto were hugging each other in fear and Sasuke's feet gave out that the only reason he was still vertical was that his body was leaning against them.

Sarutobi removed the killing intent, and they all gasped in relief and slumped to the floor. The Hokage smiled like a grandfather. "You three are still academy students of the Village, so there's not much you can do to amend to your actions." He tried to give them a stern look. Naruto and Sakura tensed up, before they slumped, crestfallen, and Sasuke glared back, sweat still tricking down his neck.

"From now on, don't spar without a supervisor until you three are genin."

Naruto was the first one to recover, and the only one who read the Hokage's cue. "Yatta!" He turned to Sakura and Sasuke. "He's saying we're free to go!"

Sakura blinked. "Really?"

Sasuke smirked. "He's right. Let's go." He slid his hands into his pockets and led the way out.

Sakura followed after and Naruto was the last one out, but not before giving a thumbs-up to the Hokage.

Sarutobi chuckled at his antics, and as the door shut, he smiled. "Wolf, I believe it's about time you retire."

The silver-haired ANBU removed his mask, revealing another mask. He eye-smiled. "It is."

* * *

><p>花<p>

* * *

><p>"Sasuke, you okay?"<p>

"..."

"Naruto?"

"I'm awesome!"

"...I'm fine," Sasuke decided to answer after seeing her ask Naruto too.

* * *

><p>花<p>

* * *

><p>Apparently Sakura was determined to treat Sasuke 'normally,' even if it meant interacting with him more often in order to pull <em>that<em> off.

Naruto tried to protest at first but ended up listening to Sakura. Secretly, he also liked Sasuke, they both had no parents, and Naruto related to that.

Sasuke figured, _better them than anyone else_.

* * *

><p>花<p>

* * *

><p>It was lunchtime. Sakura grabbed Sasuke's hand and he was about to pull back, but saw her grab Naruto's as well.<p>

This would happen every time the three of them went off to do something, so Sasuke gradually grew used to it, she did release his hand after reaching the destination, after all. Naruto was long accustomed to it.

This was how Sakura was always in the middle when the future team 7 stood together. Neither would admit it, but she was also their leader, at least in _leading_ them to places.

* * *

><p>花<p>

* * *

><p>Everyone gaped at the sight, rubbing their eyes to make sure it wasn't just a genjutsu.<p>

_Sasuke Uchiha_ was sitting with the two misfits of the class.

_Sasuke Uchiha_ was eating lunch with _Naruto_ and _Sakura_.

Sasuke had a disgruntled expression on his face while Sakura giggled at something Naruto blurted out.

* * *

><p>花 Time skips 花<p>

* * *

><p>At the library, some fangirls murderously watched the scene of Sakura tutoring Sasuke.<p>

Sasuke scored perfect grades in every test, what did Ugly Forehead have to teach him?

"Work on this problem yourself, I need to go wash my hands," Forehead said, standing up to leave.

Ami gaped, she expected Forehead to eat up all the time Sasuke-kun had to offer, not excuse herself in the middle of their 'study session!' Her hands weren't even dirty! Hell, even if Ami had dirt and blood on her hands, she'd stick with Sasuke-kun 'til the end before going to wash her hands.

"Again?" Sasuke clicked his tongue in annoyance, without looking up from the papers. "Tch. It's your fourth time today. You're always off washing your hands." He didn't know Sakura was mentally washing the Uchihas' blood off her hands.

Sakura ignored him and left, but not before slapping the back of Naruto's shoulder just as he arrived. Naruto saw Sasuke by himself and eyed his notes. "Oh! I know this stuff! I'll tutor you while Sakura-chan's peeing!" Naruto's face took on a deep red blush at his vulgarity.

Sasuke facepalmed. "Alright, dobe. Don't think you're smarter than me, you simply learned this material first."

"Heheheh, ya sure about that? 'cos Sakura-chan says I'm as smart as she is!" Naruto taunted as he took Sakura's vacant seat, pulling out his crayons to doodle on the seals Sasuke was working on.

Sasuke chuckled. "Only a moron uses crayons for advanced sealing techniques."

"TEME!"

The fangirls had backed away thirty feet. Their moms and dads told them to stay away from the Naruto brat. Ami whispered furiously to the others; "Why is the dumbest boy in class teaching Sasuke-kun?!"

The second girl merely shrugged. "Beats me. But I'm not going to be close to Sasuke-kun with Naruto around him or mom will get mad."

The third girl frowned. "So get Naruto away from Sasuke-kun then!"

"There's no need," a voice sounded, and all three girls turned to see Sakura. Sakura pointed. They looked back to see Naruto and Sasuke wrestling around on the floor and the papers torn to shreds. A few more loud outbursts later, they hmphed and crossed their arms, stubbornly looking away from each other. Then they stomped away from each other madly.

Sakura pointed her nose up knowingly. "Oh it happens a lot, and there's nothing you girls can do about it." She smirked. "If you try to drive them apart, it makes no difference because they already hate each other in the first place. So save yourself the time and don't bother," she said in a snobby voice.

Ami glared. "Then why are they always together?!"

"And why is Sasuke-kun nice to you?!" Another backed up.

The other girl leaned a little closer to Sakura, curious of her answer.

Sakura smirked back confidently. "Because we're best friends and nothing can split us apart!"

_Not even their rivalry._

* * *

><p>花 Time skips 花<p>

* * *

><p>Sasuke groaned. Naruto was tugging Sasuke's sleeve and pulling him towards the Hyuuga compound. Sakura was already crouched behind the bushes, and upon spotting them, waved them over.<p>

"Today we're going to put slugs inside their beds and record their reactions! This is going to be the best challenge ever!" Sakura exclaimed, eagerly adjusting her glasses.

Naruto explained. "That's 'cos they have these super white eyes that make them see _everything_! From the back of their heads too!"

"Which means this will be a good training exercise for us to get stronger," Sakura persuaded him before Sasuke decided it was a 'waste of time.'

"And they always got this face on them liiike," Naruto's hand stroked his chin in thought, before figuring it out, "Yeah! They got YOUR face, Sasuke-teme!"

"He's saying they're expressionless," Sakura felt the need to explain, quite unnecessarily because Sasuke already knew it was an insult from Naruto.

"Dobe," he started, but felt a hand clasp over his mouth. It was Sakura's, and one of the rare times she actually touched him, aside from their spars. Sasuke almost recoiled; if it were anyone else, he would have pushed them off with brutal force. But Sakura wasn't a fangirl, so he settled for a death glare.

"Shh!" Sakura hushed him. "Okay, we all know how to suppress chakra, right?" She shot a pointed look at Naruto, who gulped and nodded. "Just a lil'," he admitted.

"Sasuke, did you bring the seals?"

Sasuke frowned, pulling out his notebook. He had filled out 3/4th of the book with surveillance seals, and had planned to finish the rest by today, which was why he brought it along in the first place.

Sakura snatched it and skimmed through the pages before nodding firmly. "Okay, Sasuke, you're going to sneak in, break inside their homes and install the seals. Naruto, you're going to tag along with Sasuke and slide the slugs in every bed you can find. I'll be the lookout."

"Oi! You're making us do all the grunt work again Saku-chan!"

"Neither of you have chakra detecting glasses," was her retort.

Sasuke snorted. "Don't tell me we're going to barge inside enemy territory without a map."

"A real shinobi must take risks, no matter how dangerous! Right, Naruto?"

"Yeah! I never go back on my word!"

They shared a conspiring grin, and Sasuke harrumphed condescendingly. "Knuckleheads, both of you."

Nonetheless, he went through with their plan. He was curious of how well his seals functioned, after all.

* * *

><p>花 Time Skips 花<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Author Note<strong>: Kakashi shows up soon! (Maybe because they're growing up so fast) But after some important events first!


	28. Chapter 28

Hiashi Hyuuga crawled into bed and felt something slimey crawl into his pants. He screamed as he jumped out of the bed, gripping his bedstool while panting hard. 'Byakugan!'

_Just a slug_.

He relaxed, picking up the gel-animal by his hands and tossing it out the window.

* * *

><p>玻璃<p>

* * *

><p>Naruto and Sakura burst out laughing.<p>

Sasuke smirked.

* * *

><p>玻璃<p>

* * *

><p>Neji Hyuuga crawled into bed and felt something slimey slither across his body. "Gentle Fists: 38 Trigrams!" He screamed, demolishing his entire room, including Sasuke's surveillance seal. But, not before it sent the scene to Sakura's glasses.<p>

* * *

><p>玻璃<p>

* * *

><p>"Oi, oi, Sakura-chan, who's that?"<p>

"He seems strong, I want to fight him."

"...I've seen him around the Academy in a different class. Anyway, that's an extreme reaction to a slug. You sure you didn't draw a heat seal on it?"

"...No."

* * *

><p>玻璃<p>

* * *

><p>Hinata Hyuuga crawled into bed. She felt something slither up her leg and 'eep'd. Pulling her blankets back, she saw a tiny cute slug. Gently, she grabbed a tissue paper and picked up the slug. Carefully, she exited the room and took it to the garden to set it free.<p>

* * *

><p>玻璃<p>

* * *

><p>"...That was a waste of time," Sasuke exhaled, getting up to leave. "Why am I watching this with you idiots?" <em>It's not going to make me stronger. <em>"I'm going to spend my time more productively, and train."

Naruto had his eyes glued to the screen. "Oi, Sakura, that slug is reusable for another prank 'cos it's alive. I'mma go collect it."

Sakura shrugged, turning off her TV. They were at the living room of her house, on the floor of the couch, reviewing the results of their prank, and those were the last ones. "Since you two have something to do, I'm going to visit some old friends.."

* * *

><p>玻璃<p>

* * *

><p>At the Uchiha cemetery, Sakura crouched on her knees and stared at the tombstones. The tombstones stared back.<p>

_Hana_

_Sawa_

_Shin_

_Shiku_

And some more names she never bothered to learn, to which she now regretted. She always referred to them as madam, grandma, old lady, old geezer, sir, etc.

As a result, she didn't know which grave was where_,_ except for these four. _  
><em>

_It doesn't matter,_ she tried to convince herself._ Yeah! Normally I don't believe in this stuff, but ever since I met Obito-kun...I really hope they can hear me...__  
><em>

..Sakura took a deep breath, then her words came out so short and fast, like she was rushing.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have ignored you guys for so long. When you were still alive, you needed help, but I didn't provide it. I was 'training,' studying for my own selfish reason: I wanted Hana to come back. I was so focused on her that I pushed all of you away, even when you were alive and right there in front of me. I'm sorry I vanished from your lives. There was still so much time we could have shared together, but I wasted it all. I'm so sorry. Studying could always come later, the dead can wait. Sawa, you said it's natural for old people to die. Your deaths weren't natural, but I still should have listened to you. Maybe then, I would have valued the time you had left." Before she realized it, her lip was quivering and her eyes were filled with water, threatening to pour out. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I was doing. I thought you'd object. I'm sorry I worried you." Her shoulders shook, and she removed her glasses out of respect, or to keep them dry. "I'm sorry I betrayed every one of you."

..

.._drip_.

..

..

"Sakura,"

...

"Sa-ku-ra," a foot nudged her back, and slowly, her head tilted back to see..._Obito-kun?_ She blinked hard, the tears that blurred her vision slid out of her eyes, and it was..._Oh, it's just him._

"Sasuke! Um, what are you doing here?" She cocked her head, plastering a sweet smile on her face.

_That's what I was about to ask you._ He answered dryly, "I live here."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at her failed attempt at concealing her emotions. "You knew them." It wasn't a question. She was crying. That was stupid. Sasuke didn't cry over his parent's deaths. He was sad, but he didn't cry, he didn't let himself cry, not until he killed _that man_. He was furious. He wanted to kill _him_.

His eyes flickered across the tombstones, slowing down upon spotting his parent's names, moving past and landing back onto Sakura's crouched figure. "Now that I'm starting to recall back, you were close to _him _too, weren't you?" _You were in Itachi's room five years ago._

Sakura curled up, not knowing what he was talking about, too afraid to ask.

He heaved a sigh. "My _brother," _he spat, like it was the most disgusting thing in the world. "The murderer."

"I-Itachi?" Her perfect memory was damning her, she never forgot a word Obito-kun slipped out.

That name is a curse. That name makes Sasuke insane. There was a reason he never uses that name even in his thoughts.

"Y-You traitor!" Sasuke's knee swung into her chest, slamming her back against Hana's tombstone. The breath escaped her lungs and she gasped. "Why didn't you say anything sooner, Sa-ku-ra?" He leaned down, his breath in her ear. "Were you scared?" _As scared as I was? Betrayed like I was? _"Would I hurt him if I hurt you?"

Sakura's eyes were wide in fear. "N-No! I don't know, you're wrong, you're wrong!" She grasped at his knee, he was pressing painfully against her developing breasts. "I only knew the old geezers! I didn't know anyone else! Not him! Please! Sas-u-_kun_!"

Sasuke withdrew, watching her collapse. He felt his stomach coil, but he ignored it. "How do you know_ his_ name?"

"H-Heard it-somewhere," she managed right before falling facefirst into the dirt.

Sasuke's fists clenched. He felt regret, but he dismissed it. Regret was for the weak. It would only chain him down from facing _that man_. He looked down at Sakura, and decided that not doing anything about this would be even more of a shackle than any display of remorse. "Sorry, Sakura," he said softly.

She went silent, afraid he'd hit her again. It wasn't really painful, he hit her just as hard in their spars, but those were spars where Naruto was involved, and this was more personal, and scary. ...

He didn't make a move, so she pushed herself up. She unzipped her dress and reached reached her hand underneath her bra, sending healing chakra directly over her wound. Now wasn't the right time for decency.

Sasuke lowered his head. "They gave me rice bean buns on my way to the Academy." He walked over to the next grave. "They were my grandparents." He stepped over them. "Their siblings." He reached the end of the row. "My cousins." He changed lanes. "My uncle, aunts." He stopped upon two graves laid side by side, staring at them fondly. "Father and mother..."

Sakura looked at him. It never occurred to her that the grandparents could have been_ Sasuke_'s grandparents._ Stupid me. _

His bangs hid his eyes. "He took everything from me." His nails dug into his palms. "I deserve something back." His eyes flashed. "I'll take his life." His glare sharpened. "I'll avenge them."

Sakura looked away. She didn't care about any of that.

Sakura wasn't an avenger. She was a girl who missed her grandparent-figures.

She didn't become strong to kill Itachi, she grew stronger to bring them back.

"I'll revive them," she promised timidly.

Somehow, Sasuke heard. He was beside her again. "Interesting...that's the second part of my ambition," he answered cryptically. Sakura didn't know what he meant, surely he didn't have the same means as she did. He looked amused, holding out his hand. "You can try," he challenged.

Surprisingly, Sakura smirked, having an idea; she grabbed his hand and pulled herself up, eager to tell him. Sasuke clicked his tongue and zipped the front of Sakura's dress up.

She realized her indecency and blushed in embarrassment. "A-Ah, u-um, you didn't see that!" She rubbed the back of her head, and looked him in the eye more seriously. "Let's make a bet."

Sasuke already knew what she meant, he hadn't been friends with the two idiots for nothing. "You think you can revive the clan faster than I can kill _that man_."

Sakura's smirk returned. "Yep. I need the motivation right in front of me."

Sasuke paused, surprised. He was always thinking of Itachi, afraid to forget, afraid he wasn't strong enough, didn't hate enough. Afraid to _forget_. He snorted. "Do as you wish, I don't care."

They both knew he was accepting the bet underneath his dismissal.

* * *

><p>玻璃<p>

* * *

><p>"N-N-Naruto-kun.." Hinata stuttered out.<p>

She fainted when she saw Naruto, she fainted again when she woke up in Naruto's arms, and she was tempted to faint again upon waking up in her bed, but Hinata wasn't going to faint to that tiny stalk of yellow hair pointing from the bottom edge of the window stall. "I-I can see you," she informed him.

"I knew I shoulda ducked lower!" Naruto straightened, showing his face through her window. "Oi, you're that weird girl in my class!"

She eep'd,

"I'mma trust ya with one big secret! Don't tell anyone, dattebayo!" Naruto started jumping from feet to feet.

_Naruto-kun trusts me?_

"The deepest top secret is..." Naruto gesticulated widely. "I was here!"

Hinata stared, her face red. "T-Thanks for trusting me with your secret, I-I won't tell anyone," she whispered the last part.

Naruto gave her a thumbs-up, and dramatically spun around, moving his arms back and forth as he tried to walk off. Hinata could have sworn she saw something wet and small wiggling inside his pants pocket. She called out.

"What?"

"The graduation exams...good luck..." she whispered.

"Crap!" Naruto was outta there in less than 1 second. _I still can't do the clone jutsu! Sakura-chan will hate me and Sasuke-teme already hates me! But I gotta tell them or I'll get left behind! Kuso! This is so hard!_

* * *

><p>玻璃<p> 


	29. Chapter 29

信心

* * *

><p>"Naruto, you idiot!" Sakura slapped him over his head. "It's the easiest jutsu out of all five E-Ranks!"<p>

"B-But Sakura-chan..." Naruto pouted while rubbing his bruise. He looked down in shame.

"Hold on," Sasuke crouched down and placed his hand through the discombobulated clone, curling and uncurling his fingers. "It's thick." He looked at Sakura as if expecting her to understand him instantly.

"What?" Sakura tilted her head.

Sasuke sighed at having to explain. "It's just a suspicion, but turn on your glasses."

Sakura's hand flew to a button at the rim of her glasses and clicked. Instantly, she saw an extremely dense flame in Naruto's clone.

As if the widening of her eyes was his cue, Sasuke weaved a few hand seals and formed a clone of his own. Sakura noticed his clone had a looser, more spread-out flame.

"Naruto's clone is like a bunch of your clones squashed together!" Sakura exclaimed to Sasuke, and Naruto just tilted his head in confusion. Sakura shook his shoulders. "Focus again on your chakra, Naruto," she shot the other boy a look, "You too, Sasuke."

"Uh, okay," Naruto moved his hands into the ram seal and concentrated on grasping his chakra. Sakura gasped at the massive amount of blue flame at Naruto's stomach in comparison to Sasuke's. He easily had ten times more.

"...Wow." Sakura shook her head. "You need pinpoint control like I have in order to control that much chakra."

Sasuke gave a nod, "I suspected as much." He looked Naruto in the eye. "You're strong, dobe."

Sakura stifled a chuckle at his oxymoron, but Sasuke continued. "Too strong to pull off a weak technique like the Clone Jutsu." He looked aside.

Sakura frowned, "I..." She did some advanced mathematical relative-chakra calculations in her head and lowered her eyes. "It's like trying to hold a lake inside a drinking cup. I'm sorry Naruto." She clenched her fists.

Naruto looked devastated.

This time, Sasuke copied Sakura's motion and smacked Naruto in the head. "Dobe, what happened to never 'going back on your word'? I want to see what the number-one hyperactive knuckle-head ninja can do."

Naruto looked up at Sasuke, tears brimming his eyes. "Sas...SasuKE!" He glomped him and cried all over the unfortunate Uchiha's clothes. "I won't let you down!"

Sakura huffed. _Boys..._

**But you gotta admit, Sasuke does have more faith in Naruto than you do. **

_Grrh, fine!_

She slapped Naruto's back and pulled him off Sasuke by his hair. "Alright, Naruto. You're always surprising us so do it again at graduation. Or else," she raised her fist and Naruto gulped.

* * *

><p>信心<p>

* * *

><p>...<p>

Mizuki-sensei was pissed off. He'd expected Sakura to keep her grades low, but steadily they've been increasing until they rivaled the Top Student Sasuke.

_Dammit, dammit, dammit._ Mizuki glared at said girl laughing with the Fox to her left. Right at her other side was Sasuke.

Mizuki-sensei suddenly felt a glimmer of hope. _Is Sakura cheating off Sasuke? Heh, that must be it. Her grades only started improving at the same time she befriended Sasuke Uchiha. Hah, the joke's on you, Sakura-chan, because you can't cheat at the Graduation Test._

* * *

><p>信心<p>

* * *

><p>"Next, Sakura Haruno," Iruka-sensei called out.<p>

Sakura leapt from her seat, "Wish me luck!"

Sasuke clutched his ninja headband.

"Bastard, why aren't you wearing it?" Naruto asked, wanting to see how it would look on Sasuke.

"Because, Loser, she wants us to put them on at the same time. Such an annoyance."

"What did you just call me?" Sakura had returned, casually spinning around new headband by its blue cloth. **Why aren't you two acting all excited that I passed?! Cha!**

"I called you an annoyance," Sasuke repeated audaciously, "But congratulations. Now it's your turn, Loser. Contrary to your belief, I actually want to wear this as soon as possible."

"Next, Naruto Uzuma..." Iruka trailed off as he watched Mizuki-sensei bristle in intense rage. _Whoaa.._ "Hey...you okay there, Mizuki?"

Mizuki snapped out of it and put on a serene expression. "I just can't believe that pinkhead passed," Mizuki said calmly. "It's just a surprise, really. Her grades rivaled the dead last's and in such a short amount of time, they match the top student's. I almost suspect she cheated."

Iruka pinched the bridge of his nose. "Mizuki, I understand how you feel. I was surprised too, but it seems the problem lied in her not getting enough sleep and depression. She's worked very hard to catch up. You know you should really give our students a little more credit," Iruka scratched his nose in thought.

Mizuki chuckled, "Yeah."

"Oi! I'm next, right?!" Naruto was pulling Iruka's clothes again. Suddenly he realized he was supposed to be nervous and regretted rushing Iruka, but it was too late as Iruka dragged Naruto to the testing room.

When he returned without a headband, and gloomy eyes, Sakura slammed the desk and groaned. Sasuke grunted in annoyance.

Watching Naruto make his way back to his two friends, head hung low, Mizuki gained a calculative glint in his eye.

* * *

><p>信心<p> 


	30. Chapter 30

粉红

* * *

><p>Naruto sat on the swing underneath an out-of-view tree, far away from the crowd of newly graduated students.<p>

He pressed his forehead to the metal chain and just sat there, trying not to cry.

_Sakura and Sasuke believed in me and I failed._ His eyes trailed to the crowd, spotting Sakura hug her parents excitedly. Her headband was still in her hand, though. _Why won't she put it on? Please...Sakura-chan, don't do this for me. _

Naruto's cerulean gaze swept across the other graduates, trying to find Sasuke. He wasn't there.

"Dobe,"

Naruto jumped, his swing spinning around as he spotted Sasuke standing right behind him, hidden underneath the shade of the tree. "WHAWHAWHAAWHA" Naruto's hands flailed before he crashed to the ground. "Owww!"

Sasuke pulled him up roughly, and Naruto noticed he also wasn't wearing his headband. "Teme, you're a ninja now," he reluctantly told him. _You too, Sasuke?_

"Whatever," Sasuke said, stuffing his hands into his pockets and walking away, leaving Naruto behind.

Sakura noticed him approaching her and waved him over. She kissed her mom and dad before sprinting over to Sasuke and grabbing his hand. "Come on, let's go!"

Sasuke pulled back, repulsed, "Aren't you going to say something to the dobe?"

Sakura only tightened her grip. "I'm sure you told him everything you wanted him to know," Sakura answered, not realizing those words were making Sasuke doubt himself.

"We can't waste anymore time!"

_For what, our date?!_ Sasuke wanted to snap, but her eyes were wide and desperate with determination, and he clicked his tongue, letting her pull him somewhere else in a full-sprint.

* * *

><p>粉红<p>

* * *

><p>"Hokage-sama! Bad news!" A chuunin yelled.<p>

"Don't tell me it's Naruto again," Sarutobi pushed aside his papers. "Let me guess, he didn't graduate so he pulled some more trouble?"

"No! He stole the Sacred Scroll of Sealing!"

"WHAT?!" Sarutobi ran out of his office and commanded the gathering crowd of ninja to find Naruto at once.

* * *

><p>粉红<p>

* * *

><p>Sarutobi ran back into his office to pull out his crystal ball just in time to watch Iruka discover Naruto.<p>

The door slammed open revealing a scuffled Sakura and an impatient Sasuke.

"Hokage-sama!" Sakura screeched, her high pitch making Sarutobi drop the crystal ball and cringe. She stomped over to the Hokage, and grabbed the collar of his robes. "You_ will make_ Naruto graduate with us!"

Sarutobi was too shocked to react, but his ninja instincts kicked in and he knocked Sakura off his body. She crashed into Sasuke, but he held his ground and caught her firmly, before turning his dark eyes towards the Hokage.

"Naruto is stronger than half the graduates," Sasuke assured him, "Much stronger."

"Y-Yeah!" Sakura caught on. "You shouldn't fail him just because he's too strong to do a weak techni-..." she trailed off upon hearing some important keywords coming from the Crystal Ball.

Instantly, she and Sasuke were crowding around the ball, watching Iruka-sensei and Mizuki-sensei argue with each other for the Scroll.

Sarutobi regretted letting kids get the better of him, he was the Hokage for kami's sake! But he was more interested in what was happening with Naruto than kicking them out, so he pushed them a little away from the ball to give himself enough space to watch.

"_NARUTO, YOU ARE THE NINE TAILED FOX!_"

Sakura gaped and Sasuke narrowed his eyes.

The Hokage facepalmed. He never expected Mizuki-sensei to expose the SS-Rank secret to the container himself. Now how to deal with these meddling kids?

No, there was a more important manner at hand. It was a make-or-break moment for Naruto, and if he decides to release the fox and take revenge on the Leaf...

Naruto made a thousand shadow clones and three sets of eyes almost popped out in amazement.

_What the heck! _Sakura's eyes met with Sasuke and he nodded a millimeter. Only her glasses caught the motion.

Sarutobi's head shot up to gauge their reactions, only to see Sakura and Sasuke not reacting as hard and outrageously as they should

His stomach churned. These two were Naruto's first and only friends, so he'd have to get a Yamanaka to erase their memories.

No, that was like his Councillor Danzo, and Sarutobi was nothing like Danzo. He'd give them a chance.

"Kids, Naruto is not the Nine-Tailed Fox."

"Mhm. We already know," Sakura adjusted her glasses. "It's his stomach."

Sarutobi was taken aback. _His stomach?_

Sasuke snorted. "Tch, don't give us that look. It's as if you expect us to react as though the Kyuubi is his brain instead."

Sarutobi crossed his hands under his chin. _Hmm, good analogy._

"Yeah, Sasuke is right!" Sakura placed her hands on her hips and gave him a stern look. "All that energy is focused on his stomach area, not his head!"

_You were describing it literally,_ Sarutobi realized.

"Not to mention he's the stupidest person I've had the misfortune of encountering," Sasuke added slickly.

The Hokage raised an eyebrow, not sure what to make of that statement, but it was true nonetheless.

"_Naruto, I have something for you. Close your eyes,_" it was Iruka's voice.

Sarutobi wasn't surprised as he watched Iruka-sensei tie his shinobi headband to Naruto's head.

But he was surprised by the two in front of him.

Sasuke took out his headband from underneath his arm-warmer, and Sakura pulled hers from under her bra.

They tied them on their heads at the same time with Naruto, both of them smirking in an adorably smug way.

Sarutobi's eyes filled with tears. _Never in my sixty years have I seen a friendship so deep...What's more, it involves Naruto, and he's not even present...I've never been so touched. _With that, the old man slapped his face to the desk and began weeping, overwhelmed by the feels. _  
><em>

"Are you alright, Hokage-sama?" Sakura folded her hands behind her back and leaned towards the old man. Old, huh? Her eyes softened, she was fond of the elderly. "Can I get you a drink of water?"

"No, it's fine, little girl," Sarutobi studied her, put off by her demeanor change from harsh to considerate. "Sakura Haruno, eh?"

"Yes, sir!"

"And Sasuke Uchiha," he watched Sasuke nod before making his decision. This is a special case, and with this batch, they'll bug me until I... "Starting tomorrow, all three of you will be together as Team Seven." He felt no need to say the third person's name, they already knew.

"WOOHOO! We did it!" Sakura jumped over and hugged Sasuke hard. He didn't try to push her off, in fact, he even smirked.

_Our plan was to convince the Hokage to let Naruto graduate, and in the best case scenario, also convince him to keep us together. And it worked unexpectedly! _

Not knowing they'd be put together regardless of their actions.

"We'll tell Naruto tonight," Sasuke informed her. "Else the idiot's going to think that we don't know his secret and fret over us finding out and in turn hating him," he only bothered to say as much aloud because they were in front of the Hokage.

"Mhm," Sakura nodded, "if that's okay with you, Hokage-sama."

Sarutobi's eyes crinkled. "Of course it is."

She grinned and grabbed Sasuke's hand, running off as he tenderly put away his crystal ball.

_I have no doubt this batch of kids will pass your bell test. You're in for a surprise, Kakashi. _

* * *

><p>粉红<p> 


	31. Chapter 31

迷惑

* * *

><p>Ramen with Iruka-sensei had cheered Naruto up, but it was, of course, short-lived. After Iruka-sensei paid for their meals and waved Naruto goodbye, Naruto grinned cheerfully the whole time all up 'til after his older-brother-figure departed. Then, as turned and Naruto walked his way home, his smile vanished.<p>

It was a very late, midnight almost, and the moon was nowhere to be seen. The crowds dispersed as the lone orange boy entered the ghetto, poorer areas of town.

His head was mostly down, thinking over the events that felt as though they happened seconds ago, his body was still tense for action.

_I guess that explains everything. Why I'm hated. It's because the monster that killed their parents and comrades is inside me. _

Naruto's hand trailed to his gut. _They think I'm the Nine Tails. Sakura and Sasuke don't know. I wonder...if they knew...would they ignore me like everyone else?_

Naruto didn't want to risk it. He was afraid to tell them. It went against his nindo but Naruto was only human. He would hesitate. He would keep it to himself. _I'll tell them when the time is right, _he promised himself-_ARGH! Forget losing them as friends_ _'cos of the Kyuubi, I already lost them as friends 'cos I didn't graduate with them! Um, fine, I did, but they don't know that! _

Naruto thought back about earlier today, when he was the only one who failed. Sakura hadn't said anything to him, she just went straight to her parents. Sasuke didn't have any parents, so he snuck up behind Naruto, but he also didn't say much. He said "Whatever" and left him behind...all alone, to repeat the year.

Basically, they just ignored him and went about their own separate ways...No, they left together, without him...ignored him like everyone else did.

Naruto clenched his fists and trembled, feeling betrayed.

He watched an a woman usher a child inside her house, and a man carrying a toddler on his shoulders, jogging off into the distance.

Suddenly, Naruto didn't want to go home. _It's not like there's anyone waiting at home for me._ He wanted to see Sakura and Sasuke, but at the same time he was afraid to. Sakura was out of the question, she had parents guarding her at home, and Sasuke...Naruto's stomach churned at the thought of visiting that bastard for no reason at the middle of the night. _It's not like we're particularly **close** or anything._ _And that bastard acted like he didn't care that I failed!_

Hell no!

Naruto sprinted the rest of his way home.

Then, he hesitated at the door, prepared himself to greet the darkness, and opened it,

Only to be met by an explosive flash of _painfully bright light_.

* * *

><p>迷惑<p>

* * *

><p>"Oops," Sakura rubbed her head sheepishly as Naruto rolled around on the floor screaming and grasping his eyes in pain. "We meant to use the flash bomb as um, y'know, colorful party lights!"<p>

Sasuke watched Naruto through orange-tinted goggles and was relieved he had borrowed Sakura's goggles, otherwise his special Uchiha eyes (they weren't Sharingan _yet_) might experience the same 'pain' Naruto was feeling. Nonetheless, it was a funny sight. "Surprised, dobe?" He smirked.

"No fair!" Naruto jumped up, having recovered, and pointed both his fingers at Sakura and Sasuke. "You two got stuff to cover your eyes with-..wait, what are you doing here?"_ I thought I'd never see you two again_. He looked around hazily to make sure he was in the right place, and spotted a birthday-sized cake at his cleared dining table... ... ..."Huh?"

"Celebrating our graduation, you idiot. Did you think it was your birthday?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if he did."

It was then he noticed, after overcoming the weird sight of Sasuke wearing Sakura's goggles, that they both had their forehead protectors on.

_They weren't wearing it because I didn't graduate with them, and now they are, and now they're at my apartment with a cake, and Sakura-chan said "our," does that mean she's including me? So they know what happened? How? And how much do they know? _It took Naruto ten seconds to think that out before Sakura dragged him over to the couch before the low table.

Sasuke was already sprawled on it.

Naruto asked, "How?"

"How? Let's see...4 egg whites 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup butter or shortening, softened 1 3/4 cups sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 1/3 cups buttermilk or sour milk," Sakura listed out. "And tomatoes, though I wanted strawberries."

"Tomatoes have more nutrition," Sasuke rebuked, "you're an annoyance," _for dragging me to the supermarket. We should have just informed the loser and gone straight home. _

"Argh guys!" Naruto rubbed his head in confusion. "I meant, how did you guys know I passed?"

Sasuke looked at him. "We went to make a complaint to the Hokage, but discovered him spying on you through a surveillance jutsu, like the seals I made for the Hyuuga Challenge."

"We saw everything," Sakura added, "including what Mizuki-sensei said," **Cha! I knew that man was a creep!**

"S-So then you guys know?" Naruto looked worried.

"It was obvious from the start," Sasuke exaggerated. He had not known before Naruto found out. "It makes no difference to us, except that you have the most chakra out of all of us," his eye twitched. "Power that you don't deserve, and have no use for."

_I don't deserve the monster Kyuubi?_ It was almost laughable, Naruto felt, how everyone thought it was a curse while Sasuke saw it as something Naruto had over him.

"We don't abandon our friends," Sakura insisted, "From now on, that's our nindo."

Naruto could almost cry. Sasuke only smiled.

* * *

><p>迷惑<p>

* * *

><p>"I'll get a knife," Naruto said,<p>

"No, wait," Sakura formed a glowing chakra scalpel on her hand and sliced it into the cake. The cake exploded into a scattered mess, that luckily remained on the plate because Sakura retracted her jutsu instantly. Unfortunately, bits of it flew onto their clothes and faces. She blushed, embarrassed, "Aah, sorry, I was trying to save us some time."

"Tch. Leave it to Meiwaku(Annoyance)," Sasuke had started nickname her with the dobe. He tossed them some spoons. "We don't have the time to waste. Just eat it off the plate, clean up, and leave."

Naruto drooled, "uh, okay!" He took the spoon and scooped up crumbled reddened cake and ate fast. It tasted more like squashed cooked tomatoes than actual cake.

* * *

><p>迷惑<p>

* * *

><p>迷 惑 = Mei waku= Annoyance.<p>

This term will come up...often. To match in Japanese: meiwaku/dobe/teme.

In English: Annoyance/Loser/Bastard.


	32. Chapter 32

骗

* * *

><p>The next day, Sakura woke up and pulled on her red dress.<p>

Her hand went to her bedside table and grabbed her glasses, sliding them on. Her vision cleared, and she reached for her goggles next.

They weren't there, and the only thing she fingered was her new headband.

"W-What?" She hopped off the bed and checked the floors, her covers, even her closet.

_It's my only remembrance of Hana and Obito..._ **Cha! How could you lose them?! **_I don't know, I never took them off except..._

**SASUKE STILL HAS THEM! **

Sakura froze with realization, then, she relaxed. "In that case, I have nothing to worry about. Sasuke will return them and today we're going to meet our new sensei!"

**Hell yeah! **

"Sakura, are you coming down for breakfast?" It was her mom's voice.

"No mom, I'm a ninja now and have no need to play house!" Sakura practically growled out, deprived of her goggles. She tied her headband over her hair and walked downstairs, ignoring her mother and approaching the door.

"Okay, sweetie, remember to take the boxed lunch at the table."

Her eye twitched as she grabbed the food container, muttering out an annoyed "I know, mom," and stalking out the door.

* * *

><p>骗<p>

* * *

><p>...<p>

Sakura watched a homeless old man huddle in an alley picking through the trash bin for something to eat. He was too old and skinny for manual labor. His clothes were rags and he was balding with white tufts of dirty hair.

Sakura walked over and gave him her boxed lunch.

"O-Oh, i-is that really okay?" the stinky man hesitated and drooled.

Her old naive self would have punched the man for being a pervert if he didn't look too disgusting, but now Sakura had a lot of experience when it comes to anatomy of old people and she knew he was too old for his family jewels to work properly so he wasn't a pervert, just a hungry grandpa. "Yeah, I'm on a diet," she lied.

He tenderly held out her hands and she dropped the boxed rice, vegetables, fish and tomatoes (as a semi-medic-nin, she realized Sasuke was right about tomatoes.)

"T-Thank...GRAHAH" he suddenly erupted into a coughing fit and Sakura gasped, leaping behind him and slamming her palms a little too roughly against his back, pushing yin chakra to his lungs and attempting to stabilize his breathing.

Five minutes later, he stared at Sakura in awe. "Y-You're a shinobi, a medic nin."

"No, I'm not." **Hell yeah I am! **

Strangely, he looked relieved, as if being a shinobi would have been an obstacle. "T-Then...I-If it isn't too much to ask, my homies are s-sick." He shivered. "They don't go to the hospital b-because they don't have the money. None of us do, we're homeless and too o-old for anyone to hire."

He looked at her desperately. "Please, my chest feels better, b-but some of us need your treatment more than I do." he dipped his head.

_But I'm supposed to be somewhere else._ **Shannaro! It's an important day today!**

"I u-understand i-if you want money."

_No! I don't!_ **You bet you do! **

"Everyone I asked refused be-cause we're broke..."

_Well, maybe if I make it quick I can still make it in time for the Team Assignments. _**Ugh! Fine!** She faked a smile and waved her hands dismissively, "No worries, I'll do what I can. Lead the way to your sick friends."

And thus, Sakura was late because she was busy healing the injuries of homeless elderly in the slums.

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><p>骗<p>

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><p>Sasuke sat by the window, with Naruto hunched beside him. They were doing their best not to look at each other. Usually they were not this uncomfortable because Sakura tended to be seated between them as the mediator, but she wasn't here right now. So, that left an empty gap between the boys that tempted any other ambitious fangirl to put up with Naruto in order to sit next to Sasuke-kun.<p>

"She's late again," Naruto muttered as he put his head down, depressed.

"Like I care."

Suddenly, the door burst open and both of them, because Sasuke did care, looked to see if it was Sakura, but it was Ino by herself.

She walked over to them and made a grab for the front of Naruto's shirt to throw him off his seat (so she could take it,) but Sasuke was faster; he grabbed the back of Naruto's shirt first and pulled him back from Ino's clutches, so the only thing she grabbed was thin air as she stood aghast.

She quickly made up for her fluke by moving her hand to flip at her hair, as if she'd planned to do that instead of reaching for Naruto. It was the most graceful movement they've seen, making the other girls jealous.

Keeping her hand to her hair, she watched Naruto leaning his entire weight uncomfortable against Sasuke's side as he struggled to sit up.

"OI YOU BASTARD! Why'd you grab me like that!?" Naruto yelled, attempting to throw some punches behind him towards Sasuke's face, but they were all blocked, of course.

Ino sweatdropped and noticed that they were literally shoved to the side of the long seat, which meant there was room at the edge for her to sit. She sat there, unsatisfied that there was Naruto right between her and Sasuke-kun, but it was something at least.

"Yo, Ino," Shikamaru greeted from the higher table behind her. "Sit beside me instead." _There's no doubt we'll be the next InoShikaCho team, so it'd be troublesome if I have to walk towards you as we gather together. Might as well start out all of us sitting together to save us the energy of gathering. "_Choji, you come too."

Choji couldn't hear Shikamaru through the crunching of the potato chips in his mouth.

"Oh I'm sorry did you confuse Naruto with me because we're both blonde and blue-eyed?" Ino said in a sarcastic tone, "I wouldn't be surprised, like honestly, you have no sense of beauty," she grandiosely gestured to Shikamaru's dull-colored clothing. "Naruto, go sit beside Shikamaru like he wants," she would have shouted the last part but that would have ruined her eloquence.

Sasuke nudged Naruto off his body with an elbow and he yelped "Ow!" Then Naruto took a look at Shikamaru, who was currently facepalming in response, but being too lazy to use his hand, he used the desk as a surface to his face. "Uhh, he's kinda boring," Naruto commented. To his side, Sasuke snorted; compared to himself, everyone was 'boring' to Naruto. "Besides, Sakura-chan's gonna get mad."

"Oh _Sakura_ huh?" She placed her hands on her hips, the same action Sakura does when she's about to give a lecture. As children, they had been friends before they became rivals, so Sakura unconsciously took onto some of Ino's habits.

Naruto cringed while Sasuke automatically became more alert.

Satisfied they were paying attention to her, Ino lectured, holding up her fingers to convey, "Billbrow Brow was 1 hour late 3 days ago, 2 hours late 2 days ago, and 3 hour late yesterday," she held up a fourth finger. "How many hours will she be late today?"

"Four!" Naruto stupidly shouted and Sasuke clicked his tongue.

Sakura wasn't here to argue with Ino, so they didn't attract the attention of the other crowd of fangirls, so Naruto didn't kiss Sasuke. Bummer.

"...Team Seven, Uzumaki Naruto,"

Naruto perked up.

"Haruno Sakura,"

Naruto cheered and Sasuke indiscreetly held his breath.

"And Uchiha Sasuke."

Sasuke smirked, but it quickly turned into a frown as Naruto tackled him in excitement.

Ignoring the two's antics, Ino slammed her hands to the desk. "WHAT?! How come Billboard Brow gets put on Sasuke-kun's team when she doesn't even bother to show up?!"

Iruka didn't know what to say, but seeing how the whole class went silent, he took this opportunity to teach a life lesson. "From this day on, you are all going to become shinobi, and ninja must always look under the surface." His hand gestured towards Naruto, "Our dead last of the class, for exam, mastered an impressive Jounin-level technique just yesterday."

Everyone except Sasuke looked at Naruto with disbelief and hints of admiration. He blushed under all the attention.

"But that is not all there is to being a shinobi of the Leaf, one must also display the qualities of the Will of Fire," he smiled. "Naruto risked his life to protect me from an enemy shinobi," Iruka opted out from saying Mizuki's name.

Naruto blushed harder as he jumped onto his desk, "Iruka-sensei! _You_ protected me!" He burst into tears as he flailed about, "you're the best sensei ever! I'll never forget you!"

_Dramatic loser_, Sasuke thought.

"Ahem," Iruka continued. "That is why you must never underestimate someone may appear weak, whether it's a comrade, or enemy. You must be extra careful when it comes to enemy shinobi, or it could lead to your death," his expression turned serious and everyone paid rapid attention.

"But Sensei," Ino interrupted, as a Yamanaka, she wasn't intimidated. He knew what she was asking.

"Sakura may be late often, but her test grades ranked her as the top kunoichi of the class. It's custom for the top students to pair with the dead lasts,"

Naruto wasn't insulted by his label after what Iruka said earlier. In fact, he was proud, grinning goofily and patting Sasuke's back in an attempt to comfort him from who-knows-what. Sasuke ignored him.

"I see," she said, shooting a knowing glance at Shikamaru. She had an perfect example right here about deceitful appearances; the sloth was too lazy to put his be genius brain to use. _My Mind Transfer Technique would've ranked me as top student if Shikamaru actually worked hard on the tests! _

"Team 8, Hyuuga Hinata,"

Hinata perked up. It suddenly dawned on her she wouldn't be with Naruto-kun, and she was bummed.

"Inuzuka Kiba,"

"YEAH!"

"And Aburame Shino."

"..."

Ino turned to look at Shikamaru. "You know you oughta put yourself to work! Otherwise you're totally useless and unappealing for a guy,"

Shikamaru smirked, "Well it seems that's the type of guy you'll end up with."

Before Ino could retort, Iruka called, "Team 10, Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru,"

Ino groaned. _Dammit Shikamaru!_ "And Choji Akimichi." Ino flat out slammed her forehead to the desk.

Shikamaru heartlessly made the fat guy walk: "Choji, come over here!"

Choji did.

"Now your jounin instructors will come pick you up," Iruka waved them in and the adults picked up their teams and left, until there was only one remaining team, which happened to be missing one member.

Iruka checked the time and realized the irony of the situation. _I wonder who will show up first? Sakura or Kakashi? _He chuckled, "Well, it looks like you'll have to wait, Naruto, Sasuke," and bolted out the door.

Sasuke and Naruto sat alone in the empty classroom.

...

...

Naruto got bored.

...

"Let's talk!"

"No."

...

...

Naruto saw a chalkboard eraser.

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><p>骗<p>

* * *

><p>Author Note: Sorry for the delay! Just got through a set of exams. I'm going to start up my daily updates again! (Because daily reviews LOL.)<p> 


	33. Chapter 33

迟到

* * *

><p>Sakura was running with all she had.<p>

_Damn I'm so late! I missed Team Assignments! What if they already left without me? _

**Forehead, you're completely late. You just passed by Ino's team and sensei. **

Sakura ran faster.

_There's no doubt my team left without me! Where am I supposed to go now? Straight to the Hokage and apologize and ask where my team went? _

**You wanna get in trouble when there's a chance you won't get in trouble? HELL NO! Let's check the classroom and hope our new Sensei is extremely extremely late and Naruto and Sasuke didn't ditch us! **

_What a long shot._

Sakura prayed as she zoomed into the Academy halls towards the classroom she was supposed to be 4 hours ago.

_The lights are still on!_ She slammed the tatami door open and took a quick step in, only to have something hard bang atop her head. Luckily, her forehead protector covered the top of her head, so the object that fell from above the door gap only collided against the metal cover before bouncing to the floor.

It was a chalkboard eraser full of white dust, and that stuff went onto her pink hair and face. She gasped and coughed and waved the dust off her face.

**WHAT THE FUCK?! **

It shocked the other two occupants too.

Naruto had fallen onto his butt and stared up at Sakura with surprise, fear, relief, and shame.

Sasuke looked furious from his seat, whether at Naruto or Sakura, she didn't know.

_Wait, does this mean our Sensei hasn't arrived yet?! Yes! I'm not late! _Sakura did a little cheer which only surprised the boys further. In her excitement, she wanted to pull a mini-prank too.

She reached down and picked up the eraser, intending to throw it at the forehead protector of Naruto's headband instead of simply yelling at his stupidity. Sakura smirked mischievously, holding back her giggles as she said vindictively, "This is what you get," and drew her hand back.

Naruto gasped, his eyes looking above Sakura, and Sasuke tensed.

"_Well, now,_" a deep lazy voice drawled, and her wrist was grabbed by the older male, the eraser dropping to the floor with a clang, and suddenly she was being pushed inside the classroom. "I didn't think you were going to show up," he droned sarcastically._ And_ w_hat's worse than your tardiness is your first action being an attack against your soon-to-be-teammate._ He could tell that he wasn't going to like her.

"Eep!" Sakura leaped back from him and pressed her lower back against the desk in front of the Uchiha as she took in his appearance. Tall. Gravity-defying silver hair. Face masked by a black cloth. An eye covered by his forehead protector. Sakura bit her lip. _If only I'd just arrived one second sooner, this wouldn't be happening! _"I-I'm sorry I didn't mean to," she tried. "I-I was just finishing up but an old woman fell and-"

Sasuke reached over and grabbed her arm. _Relax, Sakura_. She did, and Sasuke stood up, walking around from his seat. "Hn. You're supposed to be our new sensei, aren't you?" He challenged.

Kakashi narrowed his eye, more focused on the pinkette than the raven. She was an unknown factor, one he didn't get the chance to observe from the Hokage's Crystal Ball.

Naruto snapped out of it and leapt to his feet. "Yeah! You were late too! Stop blaming Sakura-chan!"

His eye swept towards Naruto. Not only the Last Uchiha, but the Yondaime's Legacy was sticking up for her as well. Hmm. _Interesting_.

..He cleared his throat. "Alright, kids. Let's meet at the roof." He vanished in a cloud of smoke.

..

..

"What was that?"

* * *

><p>迟到<p>

* * *

><p>Kakashi's eye twitched.<p>

Sakura was wearing his orange goggles, wearing _his_ goofy grin. If he recalled earlier, she had used_ his_ excuse.

_Is this some sort of joke from heaven?_

"Alright, why don't you three introduce yourselves, one at a time. You in the orange, go first."

"YATTA!" Naruto jumped to his feet. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki! And I'm gonna become Hokage one day!"

_Hyperactive, and blunt. _Kakashi sighed. "I meant your likes, dislikes, hobbies, and dream. You've got the dream part down."

"Umm, ramen! Eating ramen!" Naruto bounced on his feet. "Waiting for the ramen to cook!"

_How in the world did Minato-sensei's son end up this stupid?_ Kakashi tilted his head. "You next."

"Hn. I'm Sasuke Uchiha. I don't_ like_ anything, so my dislikes are self-explanatory." His hands were folded contemplatively in front of his face, intensifying his gaze as he turned it towards Kakashi. "And my dream, is to kill a certain someone."

_...Just as I expected. I'll work on you first, until the other two mature. _"Last but not least..."

"Heh, I'm Sakura Haruno," her nose tilted up confidently as she stood, her arms crossed over her chest. "_I'm_ going to be Hokage."

Sasuke looked at her, shocked that she'd taken Naruto's stupid dream. Naruto was even more shocked. "B-But, Sakura-chan, t-that's my role!"

Sakura turned towards him and grinned, "Well then, I guess that makes us rivals." Suddenly, something churned painfully her stomach. This was the exact same line she said to Ino all those years ago when they became rivals for Sasuke-kun's affections, they lost their friendship. Now, Sakura wasn't so sure anymore. Hesitatingly, she rubbed the back of her head. "Heheh, um, I mean..."

Naruto saw it in her eyes and forced a smile. "Nooo, Saku-chan, I need the competition or I won't be the best I can be! You can try but I'll win anyway! HA, do your best!" He nodded arrogantly. "Yup, don't ya try to say ya didn't do your best when you lose to me!"

A vein formed in her head. "NARUTO you idiot!" She grabbed his shirt. "Oh we'll see about that!"

_ Not again_, Sasuke thought. In a flash, he was between them, holding them at arms-length apart. "Idiots, both of you. Forgot we're right in front of our Sensei?" He looked towards Kakashi, who was watching them silently in amusement. "When are you going to start training us?"

_Us?_ ...He couldn't decide if they were friends or enemies..._but not for long._ Kakashi chuckled darkly, "Tomorrow."

He kept laughing evilly under his breath, and Sakura was alarmed.

"Hey, what's so funny?" She pulled her legs close. "What's in the training exercise?"

He looked at her, trying to discern whether those goggles were the same brand his old teammate used to wear. "Well, if I tell you the answer, you're not going to like it."

She curled defensively.

"It's a survival exercise, and you'll have a 33% chance of passing."

To Kakashi's surprise, Sakura looked relieved at that.

But not Naruto. "WHAT?! Pass what? We already passed! We worked hard to get here!"

"He's right!" Sakura perked up.

Kakashi just smiled. "That graduation test you took back at the Academy was only to select the candidates who _might_ become genin, or not. _I_ conduct the real test, and_ I_ decide whether you pass or fail."

"_What_?" Sasuke shook.

"That's how it is; bring your ninja gear, and meet at the designated training spot tomorrow at 5AM. Oh and, don't eat breakfast," his eye curled, "or you'll puke."

Then, he vanished, leaving behind three befuddled kids.

...

Sakura was the first to break the silence.

"He's a total jerk."

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><p>迟到<p> 


	34. Chapter 34

记忆

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><p>"If we have any chance of surviving this <em>survival<em> test, it's by working together," Sakura lectured. "If separated, we'll be easy picklings!"

"He seemed strong," Sasuke agreed. The eraser hadn't landed on Kakashi's head, so none of them were underestimating him. They were more cautious than ever. "Tch, let's just go over what we can do."

"So we showoff?" Naruto deduced, and before they could stop him, he crossed his fingers. "SHADOW CLONE JUTSU!"

Ten clones got in the way and Sakura punched one of them, dispelling it. "NARUTO! You dumbass!"

"Wait," Sasuke grabbed her hand before she could punch out another one, "We could use these."

She subsided. "You're right, they're better than training dummies. Naruto, you're a genius!"

"Huh? Hahahah," Naruto laughed awkwardly. "Thanks, Sakura-chan!" _Even though that wasn't my intention_.

"What else can you do?" Sasuke asked.

"Um..."

"He can do fuuinjutsu, and everything we learned together," she added for him. "I can do genjutsu, medical ninjutsu, and, well, I'm not really good at fighting." She slumped.

Sasuke waved her off. "That's good enough, we've already-" He trailed off and looked at her. "Hey, you're good at fighting. You've held your own in our 3-way spars."

"Oh that counts?" Sakura grinned sheepishly. "I thought we were all holding back and merely using each other as anger-release."

Naruto gulped. He really was putting his all in those skirmishes.

"Hn. None of us utilized any strategy. We were serious but we weren't taking the fights seriously. We only tried to get as many hits in."

"That won't work on Sensei," Sakura declared. "We need a plan."

Naruto nodded along. "So what can you do, Sasuke-teme?"

"The Uchiha Katon Gokakyu no Jutsu," he answered proudly, "It's about twenty meters wide."

Sakura knew that jutsu from the elders. She never attempted it but she knew how difficult it was. She was impressed.

"That's it?"

Sasuke's eye twitched. "Ninja wire, ninja weaponry, everything we've learned at the Academy, and fuuinjutsu."

"I can do that too!" Naruto exclaimed, and Sakura whopped his head.

"No, you can't, now here's the plan..." They huddled together in a triangle. "On the assumption that he's going to fight us until we die...You're going to use your shadow clones as the decoy, Sasuke will send a fireball behind our Sensei, and I will cloak genjutsu over it to make the fireball invisible."

"S-Sakura ya trying to get our sensei killed?" Naruto whispered loudly.

"That's just a possibility, and besides, you got any better ideas?"

"Hn. Officially, we've just graduated," he snorted. "Do you really think our Jounin-sensei is going to spar us to our brink-of-death? When we haven't been trained above Academy level?"

"Y-Yeah!" Naruto exclaimed. "He's jus' gonna give us a survival obstacle course to see if we really cheated at graduation!"

"I guess you're right," Sakura deferred. "But since you've already summoned them, let's practice our specialties on your shadow clones. We'll spar them and count it as our training for the day. We still have the rest of the day left since our sensei ditched us."

"YATTA!"

"Hn," his lip curled slightly into a smirk.

* * *

><p>记忆<p>

* * *

><p>"I'm testing another team this year, Obito," his head tilted down to gaze at the teal Memorial Stone. "Our sensei's son, and your little cousin."<p>

His head tilted up, as he reached into his weapon pouch. "To be honest, I don't feel like passing them." He cracked his neck. "It's another burden to carry. But I know you wouldn't want that." He smirked underneath his mask. "You'll forgive me if the reason they fail is their lack of teamwork, right?"

He slowly pulled out an orange book, reminiscing on his words."Those who abandon their friends are worse than scum," His thoughts drifted to the only female of the team. It felt like something she would say. "She reminds me of you...and Rin." _Yes, even her._ "It seems_ all three_ were designed to mindfuck me," he said solemnly. It was too much.

"I feel you watching me," he whispered to no one in particular. Sometimes, on rare days, and only when he was at this particular Memorial, he felt his dead teammate's presence. It was nothing new, and he smiled when he could no longer feel it. "What was I thinking?"

Shaking his head, he pivoted, slowly walking off with his orange book in his face.

He was looking forward to tomorrow's bell test, to get it over with.

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><p>记忆<p> 


	35. Chapter 35

5:00A.M.

Training Field 7

* * *

><p>Naruto and Sasuke approached each other from opposite directions.<p>

The sun hadn't risen, so Naruto was still half-asleep. He plopped down on the floor and leaned against Sasuke's feet.

"Oi, get off me," Sasuke said in a sober voice.

Naruto yawned and fell right asleep.

Sasuke sighed and made to step away, but despite being asleep, Naruto's hands went around the last Uchiha's feet in a vice-like grip to preserve his pillow's presence.

Seeing that the knucklehead's stubbornness was unhampered by unconsciousness, Sasuke decided not to dignify it with effort only to fail. He sighed in annoyance, "Dobe."

* * *

><p>7:00A.M.<p>

* * *

><p>Naruto woke up with a jolt. "WHA!? Wha? Where am I?!" He jumped onto his feet, accidentally knocking Sasuke facefirst to the ground, and pointing him accusingly. "OI TEME WHAT'S GOING ON?!"<p>

He pushed himself into a sitting position and rubbed at his face, before tending to his knees. "You loser. If you hadn't leaned on me and stopped my circulatory blood flow, my legs wouldn't have gone numb and I wouldn't have fallen."

"Wha?" Naruto rubbed his head in confusion. "You fell 'cos I pushed you and that's that!"

Sasuke sighed. "Whatever."

"Where's Sakura-chan?"

"Tch."

* * *

><p>8:00A.M.<p>

* * *

><p>"Sorry you two! An old lady dropped her groceries so I…He's not here yet?" Sakura glanced around with lots of motion before settling her eyes back on the amusing sight of Sasuke and Naruto leaning against each other back-to-back as they sat on the grassy ground trying to get some sleep in.<p>

Naruto rubbed his eyes as Sasuke simply opened his to stare at her.

Naruto yawned, "Is he here yet?"

Sakura's eye twitched. "Guess not." **You idiot that's what I just asked you!** Inner was more splenetic than usual, due to the early day.

"Hn. I'm having doubts on our Sensei's competency, if he manages to arrive later than even you."

"Say, what is our Sensei's name?" Sakura asked sheepishly, only to receive blank looks in return.

She felt something bop her head and clutched it, "Ow!"

It was Kakashi, who'd just arrived. He was giving her a stern look.

"I'm sorry Sensei, I'd never forget something as important as your name—" Sakura held her hands together in worry.

"It's Kaka—"

"Oi! You hit Sakura-chan!" Naruto was on his feet, pointing accusingly at Kakashi.

"You never told us your name," Sasuke chimed in. "You didn't even introduce yourself."

Kakashi glared at the three of them with intense killing intent.

They cowered off.

"Well," he cleared his throat. "I didn't see a reason to, when you'll all fail. Let's get started."

O_O O_O O_O;

Kakashi walked over to a wooden post and set an alarm clock. "Here we go, it's set for noon."

o_o o_o o_o

"Your assignment is very simple," he held up two bells. "You just have to take these bells from me. That's all there is to it." He dangled them tantalizingly. "If you can't get them by noon, you'll go without lunch. You'll be tied to those posts and you'll watch while I'll eat my lunch right in front of you."

_So that's why…_ Sasuke had a second suspicion, and he looked at Sakura, who appeared to realize something too.

_He told us not to eat breakfast to make it harder on us…._"Wait a minute, there's three of us! How come there's only two bells?"

"Heh, well, that way," his eye curled with mirth, "at least one of you will end up tied to a post and ultimately disqualified for failing to complete the mission. That one goes back to the Academy," he swung the bells as Sakura and Naruto glared. "Then again, all three of you could flunk out too." Their glares turned astonished.

Sakura finally looked back to Sasuke, who'd been watching her this whole time. He nodded a millimeter, a movement caught only by Kakashi's perception and Sakura's glasses.

Naruto, who had no idea what was going on, jumped right in front of them and pointed at Kakashi, shaking his head vehemently and crossing his arms for emphasis. "Nu-uh! You can't do that, Sensei!"

"Really?" Kakashi tilted his head. "I'm a Jounin, authorized to decide whether you pass or fail."

"No," Sakura stepped in front of Naruto. "_We_ decide."

And then, out of all people, against all odds and the logic of the universe, the avenger spoke: "All three of us, forfeit."

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><p>丧失<p> 


	36. Chapter 36

合作

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><p>Kakashi had frozen with shock…...<em>What?<em>

"Sas…" Sakura was staring at him, an expression akin to relief and gratitude.

"We're forfeiting," he repeated, his glare suddenly landing onto Naruto.

"Y-Yeah but—" Naruto had tears in his eyes, but he wiped them with his sleeve and plastered a smile on his face. "YATTA! WE'RE QUITTING 'COS YOU'D HAVE BEEN A LAME SENSEI ANYWAYS! BELIEVE IT!"

Kakashi's mouth opened like a gaping fish, then he closed it, opened it to say something, and nothing came out.

**That mask is making it look weird! **Sakura couldn't help it, Sasuke's announcement, Naruto's insult, and her sensei's reaction; she erupted into a fit of giggles. "I knew—" she managed out, "You'd say that."

His orange book fell into the grass with a thump. He ignored it, choking out a whispered, "Why?"

"Because we're in this together?" Sakura answered when no one bothered to. In their eyes, they were done with Kakashi. Sakura was too, but the good-girl inside her couldn't help but explain.

Kakashi looked at Sasuke. "What about killing Itachi?"

"YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SAY HIS NAME!" Sasuke yelled in rage, moving to attack Kakashi with the intent to kill. Sakura easily looped her forearms around his arms and held him back as Sasuke struggled. She had enough practice with Naruto.

Kakashi looked mildly worried. _Looks like you still want your revenge, disturbingly, I can't fathom why you're willing to quit as a genin…_"Alright then, what of _that certain someone_?" he corrected himself dryly.

He was met with a glare as Sasuke was released from her vice-grip. "For a Jounin, you're a complete idiot."

Kakashi's eye twitched, but he held himself back, wanting to hear what the Uchiha had to say.

"If I passed without them, I'll be slowed down by worse teammates. Better them than anyone else, _Ex-Sensei._"

This time Sakura was holding Naruto back from Sasuke. Apparently Naruto had a better speech in mind.

"You have potential," Kakashi retorted calmly. "How about one-on-one training? No teammates to slow you down."

Sasuke hesitated.

"Hey, we said no!" Sakura yelled as she released Naruto. "You're trying to drive us apart! Leave us alone!"

"YATTA! IT WON'T WORK DUMBASS BALDY!"

Sasuke looked at her, and his resolve tightened. He looked back to Kakashi, and…snorted. _I want to be there when Sakura revives my clan. I want to be the first to see them._ "None of it is worth losing for your shitty private lessons," he eyed the dropped Icha Icha volume pointedly. "And the dead last of the class would never let me live it down," he added with a forlorn sigh and mock regret.

"OI!" Naruto was torn between happiness and outrage.

That prepubescent exclamation attracted his attention, and his eyes landed on his Fourth Hokage's son. "What about your dream of becoming Hokage?"

Naruto was undaunted. "When I become Hokage, I'm gonna become Teme's Hokage, so I'm not gonna abandon him today when I'm not s'posed to abandon him when I'm Hokage!"

And for a moment there, if he saw past the goofy grin and orange attire and whiskered rounded face, the child wasn't Naruto anymore, and Kakashi could feel his heart freeze, and his fingers refused to twitch.

_Minato-sensei? _

_'Don't worry, Kakashi, Obito, Rin, you can count on me. I'll become the Hokage and end this war.' Minato had promised him before flashing off to a battlefield of a thousand Iwa shinobi. _

He blinked, and the illusion was gone.

He struggled to find something to turn them against one another. He needed to get Minato-sensei and Naruto out of his head. Anything involving his old team, his old life.

He strugged for words, and when he grasped them, it all came out desperately, akin to an insane person's ramblings, all towards the only person in the group with no relation to his life. "Sakura, what about you? You're sabotaging a very important mission just because you want to be with your friends. Ninja don't always get to work with their favorite people. You're being selfish; they're not going to die from not passing with you. It's one thing to abandon a teammate to their deaths, but it's another to abandon a mission just because your teammates aren't sharing it with you." He was twisting the purpose of his bell test and they knew it.

He chose the wrong distraction.

Sakura pushed the rim of her glasses, and they glinted against the sunlight. "This isn't a _mission_, Sensei. It's us deciding our futures. Think of it this way; if you had to choose between an extra year at the academy to be on the team with the people you trust, or the chance to start your career early with people you might not trust, which is the better one?"

_Bookworms. You're calculating this from a mathematical perspective. _Kakashi bristled in rage and a hint of fear. His mind has gone entirely blank.

He never knew why she did it. She wasn't sure why either, maybe because her words were reminding her of Obito-kun's lesson, maybe she just missed her old mentor, maybe the wind was blowing too hard into her eyes, maybe her hair was too unkempt and long, maybe, maybe.….Regardless, she reached over her head and pulled her orange goggles over her eyes.

And then it all came back. He saw a flash of orange goggles.

Kakashi couldn't believe it…

He couldn't…

"_Those who break the rules are scum…_"

Was this the first team to figure it out? To _see_ what teamwork is really about?

"_But those who _abandon their friends are worse than scum_." _

He couldn't stop himself. He stared straight at Sakura, and shouted, "You're late again! Do you know how much trouble that caused us?! You wasted our valuable time waiting!"

"Eep!" Sakura flailed instinctly, "I'm sorry! There was an old woman, she dropped her groceries so I helped her pick them up!" Then a look of confusion washed over her face, realizing how that came out of nowhere.

Kakashi's single eye went wide, and his Sharingan activated behind his headband scanning her again and again, for any telltale signs of _anything_ he could find out, answers, maybe, chakra signature identities, perhaps. Anything that would reveal itself to him.

"Uhh, Sensei? You're being a creep," she said as her face reddened, a hand impulsely rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.

His eyes convulsed at her movement, and a few seconds as her face turned redder, and redder, until it was deeper than the shade of her hair…

It was so eerily like his dead teammate's more embarrassing moments…

Tentatively, as though she might disappear, and still fascinated, he whispered desperately, "Obito?"

He must have imagined it, as it made no sense, but Sakura gave an ear-splitting groan and a shout of 'Not again!'

Sasuke and Naruto looked at their interaction with the some amount of confusion.

But none of it mattered. Obito was back from the dead_. Reincarnated. _

Kakashi found it beyond amusing, he felt some water trick down his face from behind his eyes, sogging his mask. _Should have known you were too stubborn to die_.

He walked right over and ruffled Sakura's hair.

"Heey!" She tried combing her hair back in place with her fingers, a disgruntled pout on her face that also resembled his dead teammate's. "Oi, sensei, your hand is cold!"

"Heh. Heheh. Really?" His eye curled as he pivoted to leave. "In any case, let's get some ramen at Ichiraku's, all of us. My treat,"

"YATTA!" Naruto fistpumped the air at the sound of it, "Wait, what?"

"Oh, by the way, if it still concerns you," Kakashi said, snapping the three brats to attention. "You all pass."

"WHAT?!"

Unlike Sasuke and Naruto, Sakura had a petrified expression on her face. "How'd we pass?" _Is it because of my resemblance? _

"Teamwork." He smiled, "you're the first squad that succeeded. The others did exactly what I said, and fell into every trap. They couldn't think for themselves. A ninja must see through deception." He paused. "Although, you ruined my fun before it began."

Kakashi reached into his pouch and pulled out a third bell, holding them together. "Is this better?"

. . .

. . .

Three stomachs growled.

"Oh alright," he relented, "ramen first."

The two lunchboxes laid forgotten as they went to their favorite bar.

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><p>.<p> 


	37. Chapter 37

面条

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><p>"So the purpose of the test was to get us to work together?" Sakura muffled through mouthfuls of ramen. She'd downed 2 bowls and Naruto was at his 5th.<p>

Kakashi sweatdropped. "Yeah."

She started choking and Naruto pat her back with worry. Then she held her hand over her neck and with a faint glow, the choking stopped. "Um, sensei, if that was all there was, we could've skipped the test altogether."

"That we did," he replied, miffed on missing out the chance to terrify his three newly-minted genin. Now they neither respected nor feared him. They never had the chance to witness the extent of his powerful capabilities, and only saw him as some old pervert with nothing to offer. And now, they're treating him coarsely and straightforwardly, instead of with the careful reverence one should treat a Sensei.

Sasuke had only eaten the vegetables and hadn't touched a noodle. "Teuchi-san, I'd like more tomatoes," he requested menacingly.

"Uhh, sure," the ramen chef grabbed an unchopped, fresh round tomato and plopped it atop the soft bedding of noodles in Sasuke's bowl, before returning back to work as if this was a daily occurrence he was long accustomed to.

Kakashi looked at him weirdly.

"Ano! Teuchi-san, I would like-"

"Yeah, sure," Teuchi grabbed a box of sweet dango and plopped them into Sakura's noodle bowl, before completing a new bowl of miso ramen to replace Naruto's empty bowl.

"You know you shouldn't mix salty ramen with sweet dango."

"It's okay, Sensei, I don't have to diet since I found a medical-ninjutsu way to compromise with whatever unhealthy eating habits I acquired." She tilted her head towards the hands-down-winner of ramen-speed-eating. "Naruto's the same," _with the Kyuubi._

Sasuke finished his tomato.

"Are you gonna eat that?" Naruto pointed at his cold ramen.

He raised an eyebrow, "What, you want it?"

"You bet!"

"No," he said just to spite his, according to Naruto, 'rival.'

"Okay then!" Naruto tackled Sasuke and while grabbing strings of cold ramen, shoving them into Sasuke's mouth.

"EW! NARUTO!" Sakura stood up and tried to pull the orange roach off. "Get off Sasuke!"

"Okay Saku-chan," Naruto backed off and Sakura grabbed Sasuke's shoulders to steady him, as he reluctantly chewed on the ramen just so he won't choke. "It's okay if you choke," Sakura said to calm him down, "those are easy to fix." Naruto had his hands over his mouth trying to stifle his laughter.

Those words failed to calm Sasuke down and he glared at her, slowly chewing the ramen. His pride as an Uchiha prevented him from spitting out the foul, fatty noodles, so he swallowed.

"There, see, that wasn't so bad," Sakura said amicably.

Naruto laughed, "THAT WAS AWESOME!"

Throughout their whole interaction, Kakashi could only watch speechlessly. He crossed his arms and leaned back from his bar stool, only there wasn't anything to lean on, so he augmented his posture with chakra control. _What have I gotten myself into?_

Sakura watched his acrobatic way of sitting, and attempted to lean her spine at a 45 degree, only to fall backfirst to the ground. **UGH! How is he doing that?!**

Kakashi chuckled at her while her teammates looked sympathetic.

Not one to be one-upped, Sakura pointed out, "Oh, um, Sensei, you should eat your ramen,"

Kakashi blinked at her and smirked as the ramen vanished cleanly off his bowl. His speed, even when eating, was faster than a genin's eyes could track.

She gawked. **Damn! I wanted to see him unmasked! **_Oh wait! The glasses! _

Apparently, Kakashi was a mind reader, or it was because he could read through every bit of Obito's antics and Sakura just so happened to take on some of those antics, or expressions. He reached over her and pulled those glasses off her face.

**"HEY! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" **Inner manifested herself into Sakura's voice.

Kakashi stared at her like an alien, before smirking. "'Couse I can. I'm your Sensei, and what's this?" He started playing with the glasses, using his advanced ninja skills, experience, and dexterous fingers to learn the function of her eyewear. "Hmm, I wonder where you got these. Never seen anything like it."

"None of your business, now give them back!" Sakura was reaching up as Kakashi stood, holding them high above her reach with an amused expression. He was enjoying this too much, basking in nostalgia perhaps.

"Oi! Don't bully Saku-chan!" Naruto was flanking Kakashi's other side.

Sasuke ignored them, _losers_. "Teuchi-san,"

He fumbled through the glasses, deleting the slow-motion video recording that caught an image of his face, and accidentally activating another recording, visual and audio, displaying the Hyuuga Clan Leader's girly scream.

Kakashi sweatdropped.

They had stopped tugging his clothes and looked at each other conspiratorially in clear shame.

He sighed, not sure whether to regret going through Sakura's glasses. "I'm not even going to ask."

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><p>面条<p> 


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